


Mark me not a Savage

by KatherineKrawl



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alpha Hannibal Lecter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal is Hannibal, Hannibal is in prison, Hormones, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knotting, Loss of Control, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Omega Will Graham, Oral Sex, Possessive Hannibal, Romance, Starts during S03E08 - The Great Red Dragon, Topping from the Bottom, True Mates, Wild Alpha Hannibal, Wild Omega Will, Will is a Mess, sex while asleep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:48:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 61
Words: 309,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11705220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatherineKrawl/pseuds/KatherineKrawl
Summary: When Will opens Hannibal's letter, it wakes something primal locked inside of him. He doesn't understand it, but what he does know is that he has to go to Baltimore hospital for the criminally insane, and he has to go now.Dear Will. He could still see the words, written in the curly elegance of Hannibal's hand, burning behind his eyelids. He breathed deeply through his nose to try and calm the unsteady flutter of his heart. A deep breath. One that clawed at his nose, one that penetrated his nostrils like a liquid, a smothering sting he felt intruding behind his eyes.One. Deep. Breath.And then it took him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dearest reader! 
> 
> This is my very newest, second Hannigram fanfic! I wasn't planning on writing anything, and then this idea hit me in the face and wouldn't let me go. The pace is a little faster than how I usually write, and the mood is a little more....well....savage ;-) I have also never written an Omega/Alpha fic before (but how I love to read them), so it is a nice thing for me to explore. Prepare for explicit stuff in future chapters, this fic will be a mix of angst, some serious primal urges, love and smut smut smut! I'm kinds just embracing the shame at this point ;-) The next chapter will be longer, this is just an introduction! Thank you so much for giving me a chance and I hope you will enjoy it! Updates at least once a week. 
> 
> Love, Katherine
> 
>  
> 
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)

It all started with that letter. Will knew who had sent it the moment he saw the simple white envelope on the kitchen table, right where Molly always left his mail. It was the handwriting that made it unmistakable. It was that of either an eighteenth century nobleman, the Queen of England herself, or Hannibal. He snatched it off the table with one hand, creasing the paper under tightly clenched fingers and hid it in the most discrete brown envelope he could find, as if to quell the thick, silken voice he heard inside his head every time he saw his name written in that hand, as real as whispering lips against his ear. He then shoved it into the drawer of the dresser in his bedroom. Their bedroom. Molly and his. It was out of sight, away from Molly's eyes and away from his. Never, however, away from his mind. 

He opened it on a quiet Sunday morning, almost three sleepless nights after it first arrived. Molly and Wally had gone to visit Molly's mother and with the house all to himself, he'd decided that the heavy weight of Hannibal's grip on him, even now, was something only he, himself could end. And he would end it. He would read the letter so he would never have an excuse to wonder what it might have said. He would then burn it, both the message and the memories. And he would keep trying, like these past couple of years, to forget who he had been when he was with Hannibal. And how it had made him feel.

He took the envelope, sat down on the edge of his bed and felt the cheap, prison paper under his fingers. His joints faltering momentarily, crackling when he turned the envelope in his hand, and his skin prickling at the touch. Nerves, he thought, not without shame. He cut along the seam with his sterling silver letter opener, shaped like a miniature sword, and touched the paper inside. Thicker, this, more his usual style. He pulled it up between his thumb and index finger, out of the surrounding envelope, and almost dropped it when he felt an unfamiliar singe burning under his skin. Like a restless army of ants, painless, but odd. His hands shook when he folded the paper and read his name. _Dear Will_ , it said. _Dear Will._

An imaginary fist tightened in his chest and his damp fingers pressed into the thick, ivory paper, undoubtedly marking it with his prints. He swallowed hard against the sudden lump in his throat and closed his eyes. _Dear Will._ He could still see the words, written in the curly elegance of Hannibal's hand, burning behind his eyelids. He breathed deeply through his nose to try and calm the unsteady flutter of his heart. A deep breath. One that penetrated his nostrils like a liquid, a smothering sting he felt intruding behind his eyes. 

One. Deep. Breath. 

And then it took him.

There was rush of something deep and dark, spreading from his chest to the tip of every branching vein. He smelled the smell of campfire in a winter night sky, streaming up his dusty nostrils. He felt the touch of dark, icy water – just below the surface of a stream, untouched by the sun– and it woke his numb, clammy skin. He saw a chapel made of ancient bones, chandeliers made out of human skulls, and he heard a choir of the sweetest, most fragile voices that echoed against the rooftop dome. And then he felt the pain. 

Will doubled over when he felt a violent, wrenching fist yanking at his insides, like a fishhook had embedded itself right behind his pelvis. He cried out in shock, as he rolled to the side of the bed, trembling violently on the unmade sheets and folding his arms tightly around his middle like a wounded animal protecting its vitals. He whimpered quietly, as he felt lashing flames licking viciously on his insides and kept himself still, soaked with cold sweat within minutes. He was shaking and panting like a dying fish, caught, as he clenched his teeth at the ripping sensation behind his abdomen. His loins were on fire, screaming and burning and yearning, gagging and binding him with intensity. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He could only let the cruel burn of hell spread through his body limb by limb, bone by bone, hair by hair. Will lay there, unmoving, wondering if he was waiting for death.

Molly found him like that when she came home hours later, and helped him out of his wet clothes and under the covers. The scorching torment had numbed itself to a whiny ache that seeped deep into his marrow. “Should I call a doctor?” she asked. Will didn't like doctors. Not anymore. “No,” he said, feeling his damp skin shivering against the cold air, while inside he was still burning hot, hot, hot. “It's probably just the flu.”

She saw the letter on the floor, abandoned, but not forgotten. “Is this yours?” she asked, and he clenched his teeth to stop the sudden flash of helpless anger that boiled, instantly and unprepared, from underneath his lungs and threatened to spill. She had no right to see it. No right. “Put it on the nightstand,” he said from between his locked jaw, short and curt. It was the best he could do. She did, and then she left the room, and for reasons unexplained he felt she had taken a thick, strangling smoke away with her. 

He touched the letter again when he felt like he could properly breathe. He smelled it, felt the thick paper on his skin, carefully this time. There was no sense to why he would, why this was a risk he was willing to take, but the option not to do it had simply vanished from his scourged and scattered brain. Something savage lashed out from within and drew claws against his pink insides as he smelled the fire, felt the water, leaving no more than an ache this time. And he read the letter. Again. Again. Again. The feel, the smell, the words, they hurt. They hurt more and more every time he read it. But there was something else this time. That edge, small, but present, that filled a place inside him that he never knew existed, with a marble of delirious, concentrated pleasure amongst all that pain. And when he put away the letter, folded it and hid it in the drawer, the song died out, and there was nothing but an intense yearning. A longing so maddening he wished to dig it out of himself with his bare fingernails. A need for something he didn't even understand.

That night, he didn't sleep. There was a swelling in his throat, beneath his jaw, that kept him awake. Swollen glands, nothing odd for a flu, but they itched and ached and pressed against his skin so hard that he couldn't stop touching them. His ears caught the sound of traffic down the far away road. His nose smelled the lingering odor of the fish Molly had cleaned for dinner and the stench of his bottle of aftershave, hidden in the dresser. He had never noticed such things before. 

The oddest thing, perhaps, was the amount of sweat that seemed to steadily pour inside his boxers. A thick fluid of which he could not explain the consistency. A slick, clear sort of secretion that clung to his fingers and had the smell of pine cones in early fall mixed with the musky scent of a male body. The whole room was starting to smell like it, and it made that tormenting ache pulse harder and louder in that empty, empty spot inside of him. He clenched his ass once, around nothing, wondering why it suddenly felt like that was unwanted. He squirmed unhappily against the mattress and rolled onto his belly. Oh, and there was that. He now seemed to be in an almost permanent state of semi-arousal, with his dick half-hard against his belly and asking for attention that he instinctively knew wouldn't satisfy him. Molly had noticed when she came to bed and had simply rubbed her hand over his upper leg without any other intentions. But the touch alone had made him roll away as his stomach only clenched harder. No. He didn't know why, but his body seemed to scream it. No.

When the sun rose early morning, none of the aches had eased within him, but he got up anyway and distracted himself with everyday life. “Don't you want your glasses?” Molly asked him when he was reading the morning paper. No. No, he didn't. His eyes seemed to be... they seemed to be fine, really. It was odd, very odd, but not odd enough for him to search for answers when he had so many other things to occupy his mind. The slick, thick sweat that forced him to change his underwear about four times a day, for example. The persistent fiery heat in his lower region. Everything around him seemed so sharp, so loud, yet very, very far away. Words had never flown that easily, but grunting was most of what he did now. And the aversion when Molly, his lovely Molly, touched his arm or kissed his cheek... He didn't talk to her about it. He silently hoped it would simply pass if he just ignored it, but the only thing his mind could focus on was the fire that burned and squirmed in the pit of his belly, and Hannibal's letter in the drawer.

Jack came, like the letter had predicted, and Will wanted to tell him to go away, never come back. He wanted to punch him right between his smug eyes, threaten him and warn him to never, ever come near his family again. But he didn't, because apart from his mysterious, physical predicament, there was one persistent thought that poked him, stabbed him, gorged him every breathing second since he had opened that letter. 

Hannibal's letter. The Tooth Fairy's case. Jack wanted him to go. Molly wanted him to go. Hannibal had asked him not to. And Will, he didn't want to go. He didn't want to. He couldn't go.  
He had to go. He had to go. He had to. Had to. Had to. **HAD. TO. GO.**

Will shot up from his pillow that night and quickly padded to the bathroom wihtout making a light. He ran icy water over his burning face for the fifth time that night and stared at the red rims around his bloodshot eyes. He had to go. Why didn't matter. He had to go back to Baltimore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It takes about 20 minutes to air-seal Hannibal's room completely.” Will heard the name penetrating the thick fog in his mind and it cleared the path of his hazy attention span. His ear peaked like a dog's hearing a can opener. “Air-seal?” he said, his voice ringing hoarse and loud against concrete walls. 
> 
> “Why?” his eyes shot restlessly between Alana and Jack, seeing them clearly for the first time since his arrival. His feet bounced against the floor and his hands grabbed the armrests tight. Alana shrugged, unaware of the odd eagerness before her. “Precaution,” she said with a light shake of her head. “Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha and we are required by law to protect him and ourselves from any spikes in his hormones. We can't take any risks, even with Beta's.”
> 
> Will's breathing had stopped, but he only realized when the world started to sway before his eyes. There was one thing that spiraled in his mind, words on a roundabout, coming back and back and back again, like a tape being rewound and played continuously. Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha. Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha. Lecter is....Alpha....Alpha. Alpha. He's an Alpha.

Baltimore State hospital for the criminally insane. He walked past security, pockets checked for sharp objects, and suddenly he could breathe a little easier. His chest expanded, decreasing the pressure around his ribs while simultaneously feeling a sensation behind his pelvis, aching and pleasant at once, like someone was tightening a cord along his loins. He swallowed and continued walking, barely noticing the familiar walls that had once been his own residence. 

These past days had been about traveling, crime scenes and empty hotel rooms. He had sat on a queen size bed with his cock in his hand, stroking half-heartedly as his body told him no, no, no, this is not enough. Tucked in bed, he had stared at his phone, letting fingers hover over Molly's name on the screen before giving up. His head hadn't been with him during any of it, tucked away deep inside himself, living in a state of trance. It was as if his body and mind had unknowingly decided that something like a murder scene, a whole family murdered in their beds, wasn't worth his effort anymore. His work and his wife, too, not in range with the unfocused, spasming bulk of deranged, internal energy within him. That thought was devastatingly not as devastating as it ought to be. Truth be told, it barely existed.

When he'd arrived, he had done what was expected of him, but with an honesty that sounded nothing like him, he admitted to himself he wasn't here for the case. The Tooth fairy. The families. They were never more than half a second on his mind. He had visited the house, saw the corpses, smelled the blood. And how strongly he could smell it. Reconstructing the scene was mere minutes of work. In fact, he had never been faster. But he wasn't here for that, could barely bring himself to concentrate. He was sending out radio-waves in another direction, following after them, and even though he wasn't sure what it was exactly that he was here for, his mind pounded on him from a place beyond his understanding. 

He was now permanently wet between his thighs and no matter how often he touched his own body in the lonely room of his hotel, it didn't bring any relief to his aching bones, the madness in his mind. He could keep going and going, like a touch starved teenager with a lock on his door, but it didn't silence the restless craving that simmered in his belly, deep inside his core. The letter he had promised to burn was in the inside pocket of his jacket, humming an imaginary, warm song against his chest. He hadn't been able to part with it, feeling its presence was a gentle caress to the restless, pushing ache in his mind. It felt like the one thing that grounded him, and stopped him from drifting outside the gravity of his body. Anchoring him to a single place. Every step, every breath, every movement pulsing the same thought against the stem of his brain. Baltimore State hospital. Baltimore State hospital. Baltimore fucking State hospital.

Hannibal was there. Yes, of course he knew that. It wasn't an afterthought, he knew it was him he needed to see. That it wasn't about the case. Not about the stupid case. But what that reason was, he couldn't seem to verbalize or give shape inside his head. Every time he thought of him, even briefly, even just his name, his mind howled in violent desperation, ripping at him and shaking his bones to the roots of his teeth. 

The question why remained unanswered, didn't matter. All he knew was Hannibal was the reason his mind was clawing against his skull like a caged, rabid chimpanzee. He had to see him, he knew it with every fiber in his being. He wasn't even sure he wanted to. No, actually, he was definitely sure he didn't want to see the man. He hadn't forgotten all that had passed between them. He hadn't worked so hard these past years to move on to a normal life, with a normal family. But it wasn't a conscious decision. He had to see him, had to, had to, had to – really, really had to. The thought just clawed and scratched and dug with bloody fingernails until the choice was no longer a choice.

Jack had agreed to it, fast. Will knew he had hoped for things to take this turn from the moment their eyes had met in the snow outside his house. He wanted Will's empathic brain on the case, but Hannibal's intimate knowledge of a true serial killer's mind. No imagination needed. Front row seats, so to speak. And he knew that Will, of all people, had the fairest chance to get such information out of the notorious cannibal. When they met at the entrance of the stretched hallway, Jack handed Will the case file, who then took it with clammy, flexing hands. The file. Sweat rolled down his back beneath his shirt as they walked down the long corridor. Will's mind seemed to spiral in and out of the thick, hot fog that smothered the memory of why he was here in the first place. The case. The file. The family. He swallowed hard against his swollen glands. Alana Bloom was head of the hospital now, Jack informed him, and they would stop by her office before he could make the visit. Will nodded, barely registering. Visit Alana Bloom. Visit Hannibal. Hannibal. Hannibal.

Alana shook his hand. A warmth that had always accompanied her eyes seemed lost behind something hard, impenetrable, like a film of glass. He hardly noticed. He hardly noticed anything about her. Not the sharp suit, the walking cane against her desk, the dried purple felt pen stains against her wrist that spoke of a young child's coloring. He would have noticed all these things and more, merely days before. Now he watched past those glass eyes with a clouded stare as the three chatted stiffly yet politely amongst each other. Jack took an uninvited seat in one of the two visitors' chairs and Alana followed as she lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. Will sat, staring at a blank spot on the wall as he heard them discussing the Tooth fairy case, the murdered families and then, for some reason, the prison's new air conditioning system. He heard the words, felt them passing by and watched them going down the drain of his mind. Will's fingers flexed next to his body. His nails dug into his palms. Being here, it seemed to hurt him less, but it ached so much more. There was a thrumming inside him, coming from the depth of his bones and beating like an African drum in a rhythm his body wanted to surrender to. He needed to go, go, go, go.

“When am I going in?” he blurted, interrupting Alana mid-sentence as he perched up on the edge of his seat. There was a stunned silence and a quick exchange of pointed looks between Jack and Alana. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes in what seemed to be a fine mix of surprised and irritated concern. A lovely range of emotions that surpassed Will completely. Maybe his behavior was indeed more unsuitable than usual, but Will thought only of what was ahead of him as he felt a tickling trickle of slick sliding down his inner thigh. He must have looked sick, flushed and unsteady as drops of sweat clung to the tips of his unkempt curls, but if anyone noticed, no one mentioned it. They would label the ripe circles under his arms as nerves. Awkwardness had always accompanied him, after all.

“Almost,” Alana said after seconds had ticked away, a pinch of authoritative distance in her tone. “It takes about 20 minutes to air-seal Hannibal's room completely.” Will heard the name penetrating the thick fog in his mind and it cleared the path of his hazy attention span. His ear peaked like a dog's hearing a can opener. “Air-seal?” he said, his voice ringing hoarse and loud against concrete walls. “Why?” his eyes shot restlessly between Alana and Jack, seeing them clearly for the first time since his arrival. His feet bounced against the floor and his hands grabbed the armrests tight. Alana shrugged, unaware of the odd eagerness before her. “Precaution,” she said with a light shake of her head. “Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha and we are required by law to protect him and ourselves from any spikes in his hormones. We can't take any risks, even with Beta's.”

Will's breathing had stopped, but he only realized when the world started to sway before his eyes. There was one thing that spiraled in his mind, words on a roundabout, coming back and back and back again, like a tape being rewound and played continuously. Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha. Lecter is a thoroughbred Alpha. Lecter is....Alpha....Alpha. Alpha. He's an Alpha. 

“The air he breathes is from a filtered air conduct and every opening, like the transition holes in the glass, are sealed off. He can communicate through the microphones we have installed in his room. We usually don't bother with all this when it's just the staff, but we can't take risks with visitors.” 

Will's thighs trembled at the effort to stop himself from... from... from inexplicably crying out, howling, like some sort of animal. He bit his lip against a whimper that pushed up in his throat. “You have to do this every time someone visits Dr. Lecter?” Jack asked Alana from behind his coffee cup. Her lips twitched, nodding unenthusiastically at the Special Agent. “It's standard procedure worldwide now,” she said, “ever since an Alpha visited a very deranged Beta inmate in 1984, who presented Omega on the spot. She had to be released to the Alpha, by law. It was a mess.” - “A mess indeed,” Jack hummed affirmatively without revealing if he had been aware of said event. Alana glanced at her wristwatch. “Luckily Hannibal is the only presented inmate we have here,” she commented offhandedly, winding up the little clock with two long fingernails.

Neither of them noticed the thick vein pulsing in Will's neck. Neither of them saw the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed and swallowed again against something insubstantial. Neither of them noticed his red-rimmed, searching eyes, his twitching lips, opening and closing, dry against the office air. “H-Hannibal is an alpha?” he choked, barely audible to himself over the wild beating of the blood in his ears. “Oh yes,” Alana nodded, raising an eyebrow as if the notion of it was merely irritating. Jack too, seemed unfazed. It must have been front page news once, years ago. “He hid it well, didn't he? None of us knew,” Alana's voice was laced with a menace now, an offense. She had shared his bed, she had shared his food, his house, his life. It had all been a facade. 

Will felt a flare of hot madness thinking about it as the thick fog became a blazing, battering blizzard. He pushed his nails even deeper into his palms until he felt hot blood dripping onto his flesh. “It all makes so much sense in hindsight, of course,” Jack added, draining his coffeecup. “The heightened senses, the strength and speed, his intellect. We should have seen the signs, if it hadn't been so rare.” Jack looked to his left, where Will was a sweating, trembling mess of man. He guessed he'd looked that way too many times before, for them to notice. “What do you know about Alpha's and Omega's, Will?” Jack asked, and Will shook his head, straining the tense muscles of his neck. “Next to nothing. Text book stuff,” he said, voice tight and eyes growing wider, wilder in his head.

“Well, at least you know of their existence, then,” Jack said, unwittingly aloof. Will nodded, once, and again, and again, like a nervous tick. He had learned something about them, in Biology, 20 years ago. “It is an extremely rare occurrence,” Alana followed, eyeing the tapping fingers against his knees and undoubtedly filing it under the nervousness Will would understandably feel about seeing his old psychiatrist. Will, he had no idea anymore where to file this. “He has been an Alpha all this time?” he said with his voice too high-pitched, and Alana nodded. “Alpha's present in their preteens. Omega's used to present in their early twenties, when they are most fertile, but these days they often only present when they meet a compatible mate, and if they are physically and mentally in the right state.”

“Which is usually not at all, which is why it's a dying breed,” Jack added, turning his attention to Alana at her desk. “Did you know the male Omega can present even as late as 50 years old, because their infertility makes their age irrelevant?” She tilted her head and a flicker of amusement washed over her pretty features. “You did your homework,” she noted and Jack sighed with tightened lips. “I promised myself I would never make a mistake about these things again. There is no book on the subject that hasn't passed my hands, I assure you,” he said. None of them noticed Will had started to grind his teeth, staring a hole through the coffee table.

A beep of a phone, and a glance at the screen. “He's ready,” Alana announced as she lifted herself from her leather chair. Her movements were still awkward as her hips did not automatically rotate with the rest of her body. Will didn't notice. He was caught in steaming tunnel vision, following after Jack as his hands rested on his inner pocket, over the letter. Jack picked up the thick paper file from the desk, forgotten, and handed it to Will. He took it with unsteady fingers, sogging the paper with wet prints. “If he wants to help us, show this to Dr. Lecter,” he said and Will nodded, shallow and fast, too many times. They walked through a long corridor where Will felt his heart jumping higher with every step, and the illness in his bones faded into the background of his mind.

“Dr. Bloom,” Jack broke through the silence. “Can Will still hand Dr. Lecter the file, if the room is sealed?” Alana huffed, close to a chuckle, as she walked fairly steadily, if not fast, without her cane. “If he agrees to help, which I sincerely doubt,” she said, cockily running her tongue behind her teeth. Jack's jaw clenched, but his voice remained steady. “Even so...” he said and Alana inhaled through her nose. “Yes. The deposit box is still open. Will and Hannibal already know each other – all too well, I might add – so I'm willing to take that risk.”

Will didn't look up at the sneer she barely hid behind her casual remark. Not deliberately. He hadn't even heard it, to be fair. There was a pulse in his chest, a beat, a lifeline, something he was following after. “Good,” Jack nodded and they arrived at the last of the doors, there were five between her office and Hannibal. All she had to do now, was unlock it.

“Remember what we talked about, Will. And don't forget the file,” Jack hissed in his ear, tapping fingers against the papers in his hand. He didn't remember what they talked about. He didn't even remember talking. A guard gave him more instructions about staying away from the glass, not accepting anything Hannibal offered him, and other words that seemed to slide against the shell of his ear before bouncing off like water on oil. “Yes. Yes, I understand,” he murmured in every direction and the key clicked in the look. The door opened before him. Without anyone accompanying him, he stepped forward into the room and breathed. 

Oh, how he could suddenly breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to thank everybody soooooo much for the support I have gotten on this new fic! The comments I got on my first chapter blew me away and I am so, so very grateful to see some of my previous readers back here! It was everything I could have hoped for and I am truely spoiled and happy! I hope you are enjoying the build up because I live for those, but they are now in the same room ;-) I am writing like a maniac (I have 8 chapters done so far) so I hope to update soon! Prepare for a meet and greet! :-P Love all of you!
> 
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The room was large, glass and wood and artificial light. Rows and rows of books in between the outlines of a closed fireplace. All white and gold and hardwood flooring. Will's eyes moved fast, restless, as they darted around the restricted space in the tunnel that still closed tightly around his vision. 
> 
> Those crawling ants beneath his heated skin marched up over his spine, down his arms and fingers, over the sensitive flesh of his throat. His nostrils flared when he smelled it, vague but so familiar, weakening and wakening alike, like a siren to a stranded sailor. The craving inside him churned like a heavy, solid gear, roaring and clunking pitifully beneath his bones. 
> 
> And then he saw him.

The room was large, glass and wood and artificial light. Rows and rows of books in between the outlines of a closed fireplace. All white and gold and hardwood flooring. Will's eyes moved fast, restless, as they darted around the restricted space in the tunnel that still closed tightly around his vision. Those crawling ants beneath his heated skin marched up over his spine, down his arms and fingers, over the sensitive flesh of his throat. His nostrils flared when he smelled it, vague but so familiar, weakening and wakening alike, like a siren to a stranded sailor. The craving inside him churned like a heavy, solid gear, roaring and clunking pitifully beneath his bones. And then he saw him. 

He was turned away from him, facing the fireplace with his hands clasped behind his back. Pale gray prison suit, short hair, shoulders broad and tense. Uncharacteristically so. He was unmoving, waiting, but turned when Will's feet lead him closer to the glass, drawn by an almost tangible pull. Their eyes met, and Will's lungs filled like those of a drowning man. He saw the eyes of a golden tiger gleaming at him from the other side of the cage and felt alive, blooming, awake in every cell. That hint of fire and winter night, it was enough to ease the cruel fist that held such a firm grip on his ribcage. He looked at Hannibal and felt a sudden stream of something light and soothing, like balm on gentle fingertips, behind his burning, aching face, down his neck, around his throat, cleansing the pain and ache that burned painfully inside his bones. A fire that seeped low, lower, behind his pelvis. He looked at Hannibal and saw him, breathing, watching, unblinking with tiny drops of sweat on his light brow. It was a warm embrace. A spring in the desert, locking eyes with him.

“Hello Dr. Lecter,” Will said, air tight in his throat as his chest rose and fell almost mechanically behind his drenched shirt. Hannibal blinked, not once, but two, three times, and eyes that usually gleamed steadily like gems were now shifting, restless in their sockets. His lips parted, his breathing shallow. “Hello Will,” he said, and heat shot straight to Will's core when his ears caught the familiar timbre that came to him through the speakers. He hadn't heard it in a long time, but not once had he forgotten what that velvet tongue sounded like, curled around his name. A small noise arose from the back of his throat, but Will forced it down and watched how the hairs on Hannibal's neck stood erect against his tightened skin. His fingers searched his jumpsuit for something undefined – anything, really – twitching against the fabric before settling against the palm of his hand, pressing nails into flesh. Will remembered his equally mangled hands from his own restraint.

“So...” Will swallowed as he stepped closer to the glass, in search for guidance. Jack had asked him to come here, and now he was. The case, the file, they needed to discuss the file. His hand clenched around the dry, sharp paper but through the glass, their eyes never wavered, meeting and mingling. Ocean and land. Will shuddered, weakened by desire and a scorching heat that coiled around him like a deadly snake. Far away in his mind, he heard the choir sing. The beautiful, fragile voices. In that same mind, he saw himself throwing away his murdering restraint, and destroying this torturous wall with a tank. 

They had to talk, it was to be expected. Some banter about their unfortunate pasts perhaps, or endless dance steps around the subject of the case in the form of poetic riddles. Maybe even some double entandres about Will's current life, with his family. It didn't happen. Will looked at Hannibal, feeling tight and hot and far, far away, and Hannibal looked back. Will's words were lost, beyond the mist that fogged his mind in hazy clouds. They both stood, facing each other with strained shoulders, as if resisting against a hand pushing on their backs. Bound by an invisible rope, winding tighter and tighter, glass or no. 

Will took a short breath and rose the file in his shaky hand. The Tooth fairy case. The families. “J-Jack said you have to look at this file,” he said, his voice coming from a place far away from himself as he stared helplessly back into Hannibal's unblinking eyes. He was static, hard tension underneath his prison suit and Will noticed the sight of bulging muscles under the strained fabric. He shuddered and a small, restrained sound escaped Will from behind closed lips. Hannibal did blink then, repeatedly, before he took a deep breath and expanded his ribcage. “Yes,” he said, pushing out extra air through his lungs with his answer. His eyed were wide, his lips tight and his brow furrowed deeply atop his eyes as he, too, seemed surprised by his own, pliant answer. Will blinked, unmoving in silence before he cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, equally lost and dazed as he squeezed the file between his fingers. 

Their eyes were never off one another, but after another pregnant pause where facing each other and breathing seemed a hard enough task to accomplish, he gestured to the deposit box present in the door of his cell. Will's eyes followed, quickly, before looking back at Hannibal. His lips parted, running his tongue against dry skin as Hannibal swallowed behind the glass. They moved as one, slow, deliberate, and without losing eye-contact as they stepped to the deposit box between them. 

Hannibal nodded once and Will touched the handle, opened the little door and placed the soggy file inside it. It fell from his unsteady hands, to lie there in the tiny barrier between them. Hannibal blinked again, and Will pushed it shut and forwards, into the cell. 

Hannibal stood on the other side, watching him as the file fell on his side of the box, and as if in slow motion, reached to open the door and grab the file before the box closed and turned to open on Will's side of the room.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Will felt buried, like being slammed down and pulverized by an unforgiving avalanche. Everything he had felt, dreamed, if was here. He felt the spark of the roaring campfire against his nostrils, the brush of winter air against his cheeks and the cold stream of icy water high around his thighs. He heard the choir sing and the bones of the chapel rattle inside his mind. All his life he had been so utterly lost, in the world and inside his own mind. Now he was home, home, home. From the roots of his hair to the marrow in his bones. 

The slick between his ass wet his seat as it seeped endlessly against his inner thighs. His scent glands pushed against the skin of his throat, swelling and itching under his reddening skin. But more than that, he felt a clenching, searching ache of desperate need and howling want inside his empty, pulsing insides. His body felt open, unfulfilled and unprotected. Cold, despite the unbearable heat in his loins, and fragile between the hard glass and stone surrounding him. He shook his shoulders and a whimper escaped from between his lips.

A deafening howl pierced the room and pierced Will through solid bones and muscles. His head shot up as he staggered on his feet, searching Hannibal with barely-seeing eyes. He was there, on the other side of the glass, even if he barely recognized him anymore. The hair on Hannibal's neck was upright like that of a wild, dangerous animal, and his sharp teeth were bared behind viciously curled lips. His prison suit spanned tight around his bulging, expanding muscles and his eyes were blood red around the rim. Veins pulsed purple, hands clenched into fists and one shoulder was trashing mercilessly into the glass walls that separated them. The shockwaves of each impact reached his ears, failing to translate into sound as Will became consumed by the emptiness within him. He whined deep in his throat in a desperate answer to the ravenous man on the other side, who growled continuously, loud and wild with flaring nostrils. He was an animal, savage and caged and the noise went straight inside Will, from his ear down to his high-pitched fire in his lower abdomen. Before he knew what was happening, a howl clawed its way up from deep inside him as he stepped to the glass and pressed himself against the hard, cool wall that thumped with every one of Hannibal's efforts to damage it. Will didn't stop, the howl in his throat only became lower and Hannibal grew wilder until there was no white left in the whites of his eyes.

They touched their hands to the glass and clawed desperately at the barrier that separated them, no longer ocean and earth but blood meeting blood as their veins popped and overran their uncontrolled eyes. Will let out the most pitiful whimper when their skin failed to meet and Hannibal reached for a chair to bash it into the glass. Not even a shard, not even a dent, and Will whined against the wall, fogging it with his breath, 

Hands landed on his shoulders, around his waist, and before Will could register anything else, he was dragged off by strong guards' arms and out of the room. Hannibal's outraged howl became a pained one, tortured, burning. It was unbearable to hear, and Will's answering wail only grew louder as he struggled viciously against the hold on his body. They were taking him away from Hannibal. Away from Hannibal. “Get him to Medical,” Alana's voice sounded nearby, distressed. More arms. Lifting his legs. He snarled as he was carried off, feeling a sickening ache growing heavy inside him with every step away from the cell.

**

Will wasn't sure if he had lost consciousness, but everything around him seemed to come from far away. The sound and the colors reached him in a muted state, like a wall had been placed around his head. People moved around him, touched him, talked over his head, as he lay on a bed in a sterile white room. Leather cuffs were tight around his wrists and ankles, restraining him as he looked at the world around him with skittish eyes and a permanent snarl around his lips. He tugged restlessly, relentlessly, drenched in sweat and slick and spit that formed in the corner of his mouth like foam. There was pain, an unbearable itch inside his flesh, an ache that tortured him with stings like biting bugs right on the nerves, so bad he wanted to scratch at the skin until it would come away in chunks. The echoes of voices against the thick, windowless walls of the room reached him like he was under water, lost in blue green flickers of light against the lids of is eyes. He was shaking, moving, shifting against the bedding as a man with a white coat stood by his bed and talked to faces that looked like Jack, Alana, prison guards. 

“He is in heat,” the white-coated doctor said, helplessly running old hands through short, silver hair. Will heard commotion around him and he hissed at the shapeless sounds. “How?”Alana implored, eyes wide and lips open around the vowel as she used her arms as punctuation, with no intention of hiding her outrage. The doctor shook his head, fast and shallow, wiping wet palms on his clean coat. “Mr. Graham has presented Omega.” There was an uproar of disbelieving shouts and curses that followed around him. “Omega.” He had presented Omega. It seemed like something important that he needed to understand, but his mind refused to think in sentences containing more than two words, and all he came up with was _Omega...Omega... Alpha, Alpha, Alpha._

“What? What?!” Alana breathed the words with desperation, but Jack thundered over her, taking an intimidating step towards the doctor who paled under his old, papery cheeks. “He's an Omega? Just like that? After one whiff of Hannibal?” he bellowed in his familiar way that always made everyone shrink into themselves. The doctor cleared his throat, holding the head of the bed for support. “He was already in a state of pre-heat,” he quickly added, his voice self-assured. “He must have presented about a week ago. No one noticed this?” The question was posed neutral, but both Alana and Jack looked at each other with accusing, calculating eyes. They both looked flustered and confused when Jack's lips twitched downwards, “He seemed quiet and sweaty, but Will...” he started, hesitant to continue. “...Will is always kind of quiet and sweaty,” Alana finished, equally abashed. Will felt a flare of tight, stabbing heat flashing through his abdomen and arched up, moaning into the wrist that was bound next to his face. Both Jack and Alana stepped forward automatically, placing concerned hands on his shoulder and arm. Touches that felt scorching on his already burning skin. “There's only one thing we can do,” the doctor said, a pained look in his watery blue eyes and a frown on his dark, bushy eyebrows. “We need to send him in with the inmate.”

“No!” gasped Alana. “No!” hollered Jack. Will wailed, writhing against his soaked bedsheets. Alana placed a hand on the doctor's shoulder in a gesture of dominant guidance. “Is there nothing else we can try? Pills? Toys? Anything...,” she said, urgent and under her breath, as if concerned for Will's modesty. The doctor sighed and watched Will's eyes rolling dangerously in his sockets, rasping for air as he trashed on the bed. “Not in this state,” he said. “He is in full heat, his first one and he has already seen and scented his chosen Alpha. He will suffer unbearably if we keep them apart.”

Alana's hands trembled as Jack 's held himself steady on the bed frame. “Can't we just find another Alpha?” he asked, voice laced with hope as he stared at the trickle of saliva creeping out of Will's mouth. The doctor only smiled ruefully at the agent, pressing his lips together. “Like I've said, they've scented each other and by their reactions to it I would say they are a match,” he said, signaling the significance with his eyes. “A lesser Alpha would get killed by either one of them, and I daresay that there is no better Alpha for Mr. Graham available.” The doctor bared his cigarette-stained teeth in a dazed smile as he rose a finger to his face. “I've never witnessed or read about such a strong reaction between Alpha and Omega in my entire career. This could be a _Per mutua nexis_ couple.”

_Per mutua nexis_ , Will heard through the fog in his head. _Per mutua nexis_. Words on that roundabout in his head, that kept coming, coming, coming back. He rutted his ass against the mattress, shamelessly searching for friction to ease the ache inside. “ _Per mutua nexis_ ,” Alana whispered. Jack tried, but seemed to choke on the words. “No,” he said, desperate and determined in disbelief. “We have to find a way to help Will. We can't let this happen.” Will arched against his restraints, hot fire ate away at him from inside his belly where his body clenched down on nothing but air, and roared in violent anger because of it. He wanted....he needed.....

“There is nothing I can do for him. He needs his Alpha,” the doctor said, cleaning his glasses on his coat and offering a tight-lipped smile. 'Alpha, Alpha,' Will howled at the word spoken next to his ear. He didn't understand much of anything anymore, but his body responded with a natural 'Yes, Yes, Yes, NOW!' “Look at him, even sedated the pain and absence will induce madness inside of him. It's inhumane,” the doctor spoke as Will whimpered pitifully, and Jack and Alana looked at each other with pained, horrified expressions.

A door opened and a tall, blond nurse carrying a clipboard came to stand by the foot of the bed. “Dr. Lecter is in a full rut, Dr. Hammings,” she spoke, matter-of-factly, but a little white around the nose. Will cried against the open air, now alternating between pushing his ass down against the soaked mattress and pumping his seeking hips into the air. No one in the room looked at him directly anymore, feeling the decision to restrain him had been the right one.

“What's happening in there?” Alana said, visibly worried... for the expensive prison cell, most likely. The nurse shook her head, eyes wide in her head as if reliving a moment. “He is tearing down his cell and trying to break the glass,” she said. “The chair and the bed are smashed to pieces and he's... working on the table. He's like a wild animal.” A shudder ran down the poor girl's back as Dr. Hammings placed a comforting hand on her arm. “An Alpha in a rut without his Omega can be as strong as an adult gorilla,” he affirmed. Alana huffed through her nose, crossing her arms. “A gorilla that only smashes what I'll have to replace for him,” she muttered under her breath. “I'm sure his books are fine.” 

“We'll have to make a decision,” Dr. Hammings pressed, a sharp eye on both Alana and Jack. When Jack remained silent, looking like he was trying to fight the bile rising in his throat, Alana stepped forward and bent over Will's bed, trying to see into his unseeing eyes. “Will. Will, can you hear me?” she asked, kindly. Much like she had been when they were still friends. Will moaned in response, yanking on his leather cuffs, dark curls wet over his forehead. “What do you want us to do, Will?” she asked, trying to calm him by holding his restless wrists in the restraints. 

“A-A-....” Will panted, restless on the ruined bedding. “Will?”Alana asked, patiently now. “Do you want to go to Hannibal? Or do you want us to try and help you?” she stroked a finger over his hot cheek, a touch he followed before he turned away. His breath became a wheeze, a desperate tightness around his voice. “Alpha,” he rasped, pushing it out, feeling the golden silk of the word pleasuring his throat. “Alpha,” he tried again. “Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.”

There was a silence when Jack and Alana stared at each other in unspoken defeat. Alana stepped back from the bed, took a deep breath and nodded to the doctor.

“Send him in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'Per mutua nexis' means 'intertwined' in Latin_
> 
> I am so amazed by the reactions I am getting on this fic! I am still very new to the whole fanfic thing I am never sure what to expect but I am blown away! Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments and kudo's and support! It gave me a real writing boost and I have already written a lot for this story so I hope I can keep you with me for the rest of the ride ;-) Thank you all so so much! I am most grateful!
> 
> So, this story is rated Explicit, and I can tell you now that the next chapter will make good on that rating! Be warned! I will try to update very soon! Much love!!
> 
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was no more than three seconds inside that Will heard a low, furious growl near his ears and lurched towards the sound, grabbing at the source of it with blind eyes and hands, snarling into nothing as he searched for hot Alpha flesh. Strong, hot skin found him with clawing hands and sharp nails that yanked and tore at his shirt as he fell forward into the tremor of hard muscles of a broad, clothed chest. There was a deep growl to his ear, a primal warning, before he felt hands on the skin of his face and trembled in the wild relief that pressed tears from his eyes. The pleasure it brought to the furthest tips of his nerves was like breath, life, after being buried in the soil for too long.

The fluorescent lights flashed past Will's eyes as the bed rolled down the long, dark corridor. He was still bedded and bound and watched the blues and greens of the cheap overhead lights flicker off and on against his sensitive eyes. The bed made a turn, and another, two locks were undone and suddenly there were strange voices by his bed. He was surrounded by men, dressed in black, armed and visibly on full alert. A small army of them gathered in front of a door that Will, despite himself, recognized instantly. He whined deep in his throat, pulling and thrashing against the restraints that started to cut into his flesh. But he felt nothing of the sharp leather scraping his raw skin as nothing rose above the twisting, burning, iron fist that stirred tightly in his guts, screaming and begging and fueling the fire high. 

“What the hell is going on?” Jack asked, eying the gathering guards around the door. “Is Hannibal not restrained?” Will growled, showing his teeth at the name and the growing scent that slowly drifted into the hallways from underneath the closed door. There was a loud bang on the other side of the door and one of the guards, tall, broad and blond – a small arsenal of weapons hanging from his belt – stepped forward. “We've tried to restrain him,” he said, showing the rips on one of his sleeves, fabric stained with rusty brown splatters of blood. Will thrashed and cried at the faint smell of Hannibal on the guard. “But the only way to restrain Dr. Lecter now would be to tranquilize him. “Will's lips curled up high over his gums as he growled, releasing foamy spit onto his chin. Alana frowned at the damaged guard, shock evident on her face as she pressed her lips together, contemplating her options. Her eyes met Dr. Hammings', who cleared his throat, shaking his head sternly at the suggestion. “That would be very counterproductive in this situation, Dr Bloom,” he said pointedly, and Alana chewed her lip. Will smelled the faint smell of snow and burning wood and he wanted nothing but to go, go, go. “Hgnnn....,” he pushed violently against the cuffs, openly and angrily yelling as he pawed and kicked around him in search for a chance to escape. Something crashed on the other side of the door.

“Dr. Lecter is still locked in his cell,” Dr. Hammings said, collected and calm around everyone's frantic blinking and shuffling. “Just open his cell, push Mr. Graham in and close the door.” He was eying Will with growing concern, seeing the distressed Omega growing pale against his pillow. There was only one thing that could help him now. “You can always sedate and restrain them when they are calm and asleep. Right now, they need to be in the same room with each other, both with their consciousness intact.” He gave Alana an unnecessary, meaningful stare, and both Alana and Jack looked at each other before they let their eyes run over Will. Sweating, trembling, foaming Will. They both paused, reaching desperately within themselves to think of something, anything, any other way than throwing Will in with the lion.

Another crash behind the door and Will ground his teeth so hard his eyes spilled tears over his cheeks, wetting what was already soaked. He was suffering. “Do it,” Alana said, short and empty. Jack nodded once in response, hands clenching into fists. Dr. Hammings stepped forward and reached for the restraints around Will's ankles as the armed guards stepped closer and placed themselves between the hospital bed and the door, where Alana handed the key to the blond security guard. “I'm so sorry, Will,” she whispered, pain and moisture in her eyes as she reached fingers out to the snapping, snarling beast on the mattress before she stepped away from his bed. Will's legs were freed from leather cuffs, but before he could move he was instantly held down by the guards by his bed. He wailed and pushed against strong muscles, but nothing shifted under the strain as he cried angry, desperate tears that seeped down his cheeks and over his ears. His arms were next, equally bound by determined hands that smelled like gunpowder and the cheap hand soap from their staff bathroom. It made Will's insides rip and tear in protest as he was forced upright, socked feet on the stone floor. 

“Easy,” one of the men warned, holding on to Will's buckling thighs. Their gloved hands touched his sweaty arms, the soaked back of his pants, and Will wanted to lash out and tear their unrighteous fingers away with his bare teeth. It was all wrong. His eyes, however, stayed fixated on nothing but the door, that door, and the blond guard with the key. There was a click of the lock, a squeak of the heavy hinges and then a push to open it. Eight hands tightened on him when his body trembled and tensed at the whiff of fire and winter sky that washed over him. The scent, pure and whole and rich, was like acid filling his scorching lungs, his withering heart, his crumbling bones, but this time the destruction felt like a beautiful, choreographed dance inside his chest. Like everything burned would be replaced with something better.

He heard a roar that pierced his heart, and his head shot up, with teeth bared and muscles pushing against his human cage. He was dragged in, lead through the open door and his heart pulsed an aching pleasure when he saw the hardwood floors, the white and gold, the light and the glass. And behind the glass, was Hannibal. Gray prison suit, short hair, looking absolutely wrecked and wild. His fingers were bloody and his eyes were laced with broken veins. His suit was ripped around his knees and across his chest and his graying, usually neat hair was sticking up from the neck to the front in wild, unkempt strands. He was standing amid the rubble of broken furniture and ripped bedding, and as soon as he noticed Will being dragged into the room he launched himself at the door, growling like an untamed lion with a rumble that came from deep within and made Will's insides quiver.

When Hannibal noticed the guns pointing at him and his Omega, he stepped back, baring fangs that shone red with the blood of some unlucky guard, no doubt. He looked ready to kill, to skin, to slaughter and tear, and he kept the growl in his throat, low and dangerous as a clear warning, but held still when the door between them was unlocked by a guard. Hannibal had his back hunched, his spine round and his fingers bent into claws as his bloodied eyes followed every single movement from the gathering guards, and the barrels pointed at Will's damp curls. 

The scent rolled in like a thick fog, winter and autumn that their hearts recognized as home, and both Will and Hannibal let out a high-pitched whine against the border of pain and relief. Their eyes met, wild and unsteady, but seeing nothing else than each other as Will growled, clawed and lurched forwards like a starving wolf that smelled a fat rabbit. He felt a push against his back, a hurried shove into the room, and a very, very quick click of a lock being shut behind his back. 

They were both here. They were together.

**

There was that one second of white, wide, bottomless silence within Will, right before Hannibal's presence, his nearness, washed over his skin and sunk deep, turning everything inside to loud, black and blood. What followed unleashed a raging storm inside his bones, roaring and gnawing, blinding him and wrecking all restraint left inside. He felt himself being dragged under in the black, icy water of the stream by the pushing, throttling hands of a raw, savage need within him. He couldn't think. He could barely hear or see anything anymore. But he could feel, and he felt it all. 

Hannibal was near, hidden in the dark fog behind his eyes, and the icy heat of winter fire that blazed around him soothed the unendurable burning flesh of Will's face, down his neck, the blazing skin behind his ears. It was flowing like a seamless twirl of bliss and darkness, like that place where the water gradually grew deeper, colder, inescapable. Will was captured but liberated, breathing freely, so lost and blind but safe with a body so empty, but so close to completion. The beast within him howled through Will's teeth and inhaled the smell of blood and burning wood. Home. It was a boundless, uncontrollable piece of paradise inside the deepest pit of hell. 

It was no more than three seconds inside that Will heard a low, furious growl near his ears and lurched towards the sound, grabbing at the source of it with blind eyes and hands, snarling into nothing as he searched for hot Alpha flesh. Strong, hot skin found him with clawing hands and sharp nails that yanked and tore at his shirt as he fell forward into the tremor of hard muscles of a broad, clothed chest. There was a deep growl to his ear, a primal warning, before he felt hands on the skin of his face and trembled in the wild relief that pressed tears from his eyes. The pleasure it brought to the furthest tips of his nerves was like breath, life, after being buried in the soil for too long. 

The hands were big and strong and rough as they enveloped his jaw with fingers closing hard around the bone, yanking him forward, nails to flesh. Hands like these, masculine and powerful, had never before touched his skin. They were stronger than his own, overruling and overtaking him. The pain was sharp and Will whimpered in delirious want, pawing blindly at the air. Strong arms pulled him forward as fingers scoured every bit of him, searching frantically across his cheekbones, his hair, his throat. There was a continuous rumble in his ear, like the purr of a mountain lion, as a nose pressed and pushed under his chin and against his neck, brushing skin with hot air. The touch felt like a heartbeat, a breath of air, vitally necessary. 

There were a thousand fragile voices singing in the chapel, and he felt the pain, embedded so deeply he couldn't remember being without it, blossoming and elevating with every breath, to something that filled every crease of him with the warm, thick liquid of euphoria. But the empty, wailing ache inside him, squeezing tight behind his pelvis, remained. It expanded, gnawing against his lower belly.

Will snarled and reached his fingers out to find the soft, shaved skin of Hannibal's cheeks. It was pure light to his hazy eyes, and he briefly envisioned clawing it open and crawling inside. “Will,” Hannibal's voice vibrated dark and low against his throat and his name on that tongue was enough for Will to careen forward and press into broad shoulders and warm flesh. There was a deep rumble before he felt a wet tongue against his throat, on his glands, hungrily lapping at him like he was to be devoured. Will cried, a screech too high to be human, and he clawed at everything he could find. Shoulders, arms, a strong back. He pushed his body close, folded one leg around Hannibal's hip and lifted one knee against his waist as if to climb against him, on him, in him. The contact of their bodies sent a deep thrill from toes to teeth and his hands lashed out, pushing nails deep into the thin fabric of Hannibal's jumpsuit as he scratched and pulled at the unwanted material. Another violent snarl erupted as arms came up to encircle his waist and grabbed his lifted leg to push them closer together.

Their groins were hot and hard and pressing close as they moved backwards in synchronicity, away from the door and into the room. Hannibal's hand roamed Will's body, hard and demanding, yanking at his curls with vicious pulls as he mouthed the skin of his face, his neck and collarbone. Will's nails pressed into Hannibal's jaw, breaking skin and drawing blood that he lapped at with a hungry tongue, tasting something that he knew had always belonged to him. Their minds were lost, primal and primitive. Will could feel his glands pulsing under his skin and the slick pouring steadily against his legs from under his pants as his ass and groin grew hot, hot inside his pants. “Will,” Hannibal rumbled again, raising bloody, golden tiger eyes to meet him with a gaze he fought hard to keep steady. Will gasped and shuddered, his name from those lips a white, soft cloud in the thunder storm, and he blinked, focused his line of vision and saw him, met him, connected. Those eyes, they were in all his dreams and all his nightmares and Will felt him hard and deep like sharp electricity pumping through his veins. 

Hannibal's body tightened at the contact, a furious need shimmering in his golden, bloody eyes before he lashed out, capturing Will's pink, open mouth and bared teeth with his own. That kiss was their first, but neither one of them could consider the sentiment as they growled and moaned and pulled at lips with fangs like sparring wolves. Their tongues licked against teeth and teeth bit against lips that searched and slid and pressed together as Will fell slack onto Hannibal's chest. He felt taken by a frenzy of raw pleasure that pumped through him at the feel and taste of his Alpha, of his and of home. The stabbing, pulsing, empty, angry heat inside of him only wailed harder and louder to be filled and he shamelessly rubbed himself against the body of his taller Alpha, who sank a sharp fang into Will's bottom lip and placed one pressing hand against Will's back. Will growled when he tasted his own blood and snapped his teeth at Hannibal's lips. Their mouths opened at the dripping blood, tongues meeting in hungry, depraved, demolishing lust. 

There was a deep need to destroy, take, devour and fill. It was their need and nature pushed too far by separation, absence, built too high and too strong. What they needed was heat and skin and flesh, blood and slick and semen. Will moaned in desperate, repressed pleasure that took over the last remains of his sanity when Hannibal's hands cupped his soaked ass through his clothes and pushed their hips together in unsteady, uncontrolled friction. He threw back his head when Hannibal's big hands ripped at the wet shirt that hung on his frame. “Alpha,” Will moaned when he heard the snaring sound of ripped cotton and watched pieces of his ruined shirt fall to the floor. Sharp nails ran hard over his exposed chest, leaving red marks on his pale skin that stung beautifully and deep pink.

His own hands, in return, started gripping at the thin material of Hannibal's pale gray prison suit as the Alpha bit and broke skin on his collarbone and ran hands down to grab Will's hips. It wasn't gentle, it was desperate and raw as Will heard the uncontrolled panting of hot air from Hannibal's nose close to his ear and Will howled his approval as he clawed cruelly at the flesh of Hannibal's neck. The touch, the scent, the sound, they made his skin sing like an opera. It rooted into him so deep it made him feel like liquid under those strong searching hands. It was a bloody piece of heaven they both had been designed for. 

Between the hungry bites and licks at his heaving, pounding chest, Will's attempts at undressing his Alpha became careless until Hannibal tore the fabric between his own fingers and let it fall from his arms and shoulders to hang around his hips. Will's hands clutched Hannibal's white undershirt and Hannibal's hands unbuckled the belt on Will's pants, ripping and tearing at the leather before it came undone. They pooled around Will's ankles, leaving him standing in his boxers with Hannibal's hard, sharp claws, lips and blood-filled eyes all over his exposed skin.

Hannibal ripped his undershirt off his chest and kicked off his prison loafers before yanking down and stepping out of his pale prison suit, looking wild and naked, damaged and bloody with red scratches and bites on his skin. There was a whine that rose from Will's throat and couldn't be stopped as he watched the Alpha through his hazy, ocean eyes. He was beautiful, fierce limbs, strong but soft around his waist with hair adorning his chest, like a graying wolf. Eyes wild, red and yellow, teeth sharp and stained with his blood, spine curved like a haunting, stalking wolf ready to pounce. Will saw the strain in his white boxers before they were pulled away, falling from Hannibal's slim hips and Will's whine became pitiful with a desperate, pathetic, tearful need that hurt so bad inside his belly. Hannibal was an Alpha. He was bigger, larger, than any mere human. He was thick, growing thicker even around the base, and he was long and hard, cock curving up towards his belly. He was huge and Will wanted it, he wanted every inch.

There was no time or sense or will to stare and hesitate, because Hannibal was already pouncing on him, yanking his curls, digging nails at his back and nosing possessively under his jaw. “My home,” he growled and dipped his hands under the waistband of Will's pale blue, soaked boxer shorts. Will buckled wildly against Hannibal's naked body, rolling his eyes back when one finger grazed the wet slick that gathered around his hole. His body screamed victory at the contact, shooting hot streams of sparkling fire up his knees into his belly and Will all but sobbed at the feeling of the demanding touch before Hannibal brought his hand back up and sucked a slick finger into his mouth. “Omega,” he purred, low and dark, closing his eyes involuntarily like a man in the desert savoring his last drop of water. “My Omega,” he hissed against Will's lips, who wheezed an ongoing mantra of “Yes. Yes. Yes.” 

Will's knees were weak when he stepped back and hit the table that stood in the middle of the trashed room as they ripped and licked at each other's mouths and skin with fangs and tongues and bruised, bitten lips. One of the table legs had been ripped off and one corner seemed like a large, strong fist had punched a hole right through it, but Hannibal pushed against him, shoving his hips onto the tabletop. Tiger eyes, he could see them almost clearly now as he was pushed roughly to his back on the wobbling furniture, mewling against nothing and lifting his neck up in a search for more skin, more contact, closer, faster. Lips found his as Will's hands clawed desperately at Hannibal's naked torso, pinching and pushing and biting Hannibal's forearm when he leaned over him imposingly. He was muscles and hair and skin and Will wanted all of it. He wanted to see everything, feel everything, and right now, he wanted to be bred, filled, fucked by his Alpha, so much it made him wail like a lost pup. 

Hannibal's tongue followed after Will's opened lips and licked into his mouth, bringing the taste of blood on his sharp teeth, burning coals and smooth, soothing Scotch. It tasted like Wolftrap, before it all went to hell. He whined, pushing his hips forward as Hannibal positioned himself firmly between his legs. “Will,” Hannibal shuddered, directionless against Will's ear, eyes lost behind the beast within as his hands squeezed Will's inner thighs. There was nothing left in him that wasn't Hannibal, and those hands on his skin, so close to his slick, empty body made it impossible to form a single coherent thought in his mind except one, repeating, pounding thought. “Fuck me,” he moaned, teeth bare and hips tilted wantonly upwards. “Breed me.” Hannibal bared his fangs, hissing hot air against his ear shell and he leaned forward over the table to shove Will's boxers past his hips with ripping, demanding hands. “Yes,” he growled, grabbing Will's hips to position his body on the edge of the table with rough, impatient hands. 

Those golden eyes ran over the slick between Will's legs and nails dug sharply in Will's ass cheeks. Hannibal growled with hot pride and satisfaction before he palmed the hard cock that curved proudly between Will's legs. Will snarled and pushed his head into the table as he wriggled away from the touch. It was a detour. It was torture. “Please, please, please,” he cried, begged, leaking tears from his eyes as he pushed up his hips. Hannibal's fingers slid lower, spreading his cheeks to expose the tight, pink hole, shining, dripping with slick. Hannibal moaned, his breath like a prayer at the sight and dipped his head until Will felt a smooth tongue running between his cheeks, over his hot, clenched hole. “Fuck, fuck,” he shuddered violently, buckling against Hannibal's face. He wanted to feel this, wanted to have this, but for now, it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't enough. His body wanted one thing only, and it was to be filled until there was no room left inside. “Please, please, please, Alpha,” Will cried, wailed, more tears pressing from the corners of his eyes as he rode his desperate hips against Hannibal's face. A finger pushed inside alongside the lapping tongue, sliding in the slick tightness of Will's thrashing body with ease, as he clenched around the intrusion, inviting it in further, harder.

Another finger and Will mewled his despair. It didn't alleviate the pain. It didn't sooth the empty ache. Hannibal's fingers were trembling, his thighs against the table were shaking, and Will knew it was due to pure and hard restraint that he wasn't already being mounted with teeth in his neck like a savage beast. His Alpha didn't want to hurt him, unknowing that it was the wait itself that was truly agonizing. “Alpha. Alpha,” Will screeched, sobbing into his own two hands when Hannibal removed his fingers. “Now. Now. Please.” He knew he was crying quite obscenely now, and Hannibal pulled back, lips gleaming with Will's pouring slick, and crawled onto the table with the grace of a cat before sliding his sticky lips over Will's, eyes gleaming gold and blood like a monster in the dark. Will's tongue darted to his lips to taste the sweet musk that was his own. “Hannibal, Alpha,” he said, breathless against the body that covered him, hairy chest against his smooth skin. The strong, soft stomach pressing on his. The large, large erection against the crease of his thigh. Hannibal's breath hitched when he heard his name, and his eyes burned over with uncontrolled lust when he hoisted Will's knees up around his hips and aligned his cock with Will's desperate, dripping hole. “Yes, now,” Hannibal growled breathlessly against his skin and Will groaned at the words from the pit of his being when he felt himself being breached by the large head of Hannibal's cock. No more waiting.

The intrusion was a large stretch inside his tight body. The pain was there, but the fill was an immediate, glorious, inexplicable sense of absolute, heavenly completion. Hannibal thrust in quickly, trembling from the rumble he held in his chest, and he seemed instantly lost in the velvety slick of Will's tight, virgin body. Hannibal pushed until half of his pulsing cock was inside Will's burning body, and pushed against the barrier of clenching muscles without a pause. Even half way, Will's body was euphoric, singing from every pore, in every cell, from his tail bone to the top of his spine at the base of his skull. His body clenched happily around the Alpha inside him, the Alpha that belonged there, that he needed, that he whined and sobbed and begged for. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was his cure, his prayer, his medicine, the remedy for his pain and suffering, everything wrong with life.

Their eyes met, wild and wide and wet as they felt each other everywhere, in and out. Hannibal's cock nudged impatiently inside his heat and Will felt the fill inside fixing all that had been wrong and broken before. They panted and growled, mouth against mouth, breathing each other's air and nipping at broken lips. They were rising and falling, chest to chest on the wobbling table underneath. Sharp finger nails were cruel against their tender flesh, and Will saw blood on his fingers where he clawed wild and lost on Hannibal's shoulders. They didn't hear how the wobbling legs sighed under their weight and trembled on the hardwood floor. 

The Omega brought up his legs when Hannibal fucked harder into his body, that had become pliant around the Alpha inside him. Hannibal's nose pushed against his throat searching for his glands, nudging like a begging dog, as he deeply inhaled Will's scent. Teeth glistened behind his lips and Will's eyes were drawn to the sight as he watched Hannibal's eyes resting on the exposed, bare flesh of his glands. Deep in a delirious heat, Will struggled hard to understand, to remember, why that was such a dangerous sight. 

It was everything, a waterfall of pleasure that rained upon him as he felt the movement and the stretch inside. His cock was hard, leaking on his belly, and for the moment, completely forgotten. Will wanted more, needed more. Everything. Hannibal leaned down to kiss his lips, his chin, the gland in his throat, and they both groaned as Hannibal's cock moved deeper inside Will, pushing further into the Omega underneath him. Will's strong and gripping muscles contracted tightly around Hannibal, who wound his fingers in Will's hair and around his throat to yank and squeeze brutally on the delirious Omega. 

Will felt Hannibal wanted nothing more than to claim, to tear at his flesh with his teeth and slam into him so forcefully he would tear him apart and that anything other was for Will's sake and safety alone. He whimpered, tilting his hips as Hannibal pushed inside him and pressed his heels into the Alpha's hips to force him in all the way without stopping. The burn that accompanied Hannibal's entire length was a cruel one and Will thrashed and cried wet tears, trembling around the cock buried mercilessly inside him. He was full, so full. Everything was deep and hot and pulsed like an open vein, but his body was made for this, and he felt himself hungrily rolling his hips down against Hannibal's pelvis to ensure he had it all. Hannibal growled from between his bloody teeth, slamming his hips further and sharper into his Omega before he pulled back, pressed nails into the Omega's tightened throat, and forced himself back inside. 

Will howled around the clutch on his windpipe, clawing his fingers on Hannibal's shoulders and grabbing onto hot flesh with already bloodied nails. He felt himself expanding and tearing, maybe even bleeding, but there was no stopping them now. He was right here, filling a dark space that had been empty without him all this time. He belonged here, right here. He looked up through the tears of pain and burn and beauty and met with wide tiger eyes welling over with penetrating pleasure and an open-mouthed stare. Hannibal was completely lost inside Will's body, who finally felt the endless void within like a sheet of paper colored to completion as his Alpha's hard cock dragged inside through tight, wet, hot, endless pleasure that belonged there. 

Will breathed hard around the fingers on his throat and felt Hannibal pushing in harder, shorter, sharper. He let his hands run up across Hannibal's rocking belly with searching fingers, there was a kiss to his lips, a squeeze to his throat and a cruel pull at his hair and suddenly, Hannibal hit something inside of him that made him feel like he was weightless, falling backwards into nothing, filled to the brim with a painful rasp of pleasure. Hannibal pulled back before hitting that pleasure spot dead on with the head of his cock and Will hissed through his teeth, pawing wildly at his Alpha's ribs as he was left with a delicious drag out before it was repeated all over again.

They were a tangle of wild wolves in the night, fighting and fucking vigorously as they pushed and pulled in their furious need for their mate. Wanting closer. Wanting blood. There were kisses made from open mouths and sharp teeth, caresses with sharp, vicious lashes of hands, and the room was filled with growls and moans and snarls as they mated and fought and wanted each other only closer. Hannibal let his teeth sink above Will's nipple, ripping at the skin and making the Omega snarl when hot blood poured from his skin and pain twisted with his pleasure.

Will's body was so new and tight, but Hannibal pushed fearlessly past that strangling grip, fucking into him completely and with abandon as he roared and snarled and reached for soft, Omega skin. His eyes were close to the flickering orange of an untamed jungle cat as he nipped along his Omega's jaw, lost in the way Will squirmed and squeezed and dripped around his cock like he was born to do. The Omega was a weeping, whimpering mess, pulling at his own hair and biting his lips in cruel, liberating extacy. “Oh God, Oh God,” Will was lost, blinded, groping at Hannibal's arms, chest and face as his prostate was pounded into wild heaven and back as the animal inside him screamed “Yes, Fuck, Yes. This, This, This.” He felt safe, protected, confident to surrender as he felt Hannibal's cock moving inside him, heard his growls in his ear and felt the caress of his breath on his throat. He felt kept, marked. Belonging.

Hannibal pressed in harder, tighter, deeper, pushing himself upright onto his knees as his hands lifted Will's hips to follow after. Will was still pressed to the table, his back arched almost completely off the surface as his nails scratched helplessly against the tabletop and at his mate. His prostate was stimulated with such nerve-wracking pleasure, and he knew he was close to his release. 

He reached between them and palmed his angry and forgotten, swollen erection as he squeezed up with every thrust. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Will never heard the table creak, didn't feel it sway beneath his back, as he clenched hard and tight around Hannibal and trembled, feeling liquid fire pulsing hot and devastating through his wrecked body before he shot his load all over his abdomen. The cry he let out was raw, bone crunching, barely human as Hannibal bucked into him with vicious thrusts and fucked him through his climax. 

That was when the table collapsed, bringing their joined, naked bodies to the floor with a loud bang and a hard slam. The floor trembled, pieces of wood and metal went flying and the two crashed onto the hardwood floor, mouths pressed into a furious kiss. Will rolled to the side from the impact of the fall, separating their bodies involuntarily before his head shot back up and his lip curled, looking at Hannibal with widened, ocean eyes. There was a pause, one second, a deafening silence, before they both moved inwards as one and their mouths crashed back together. Lips slid together, wet with saliva, and tongues met inside hot, moaning, growling mouths that searched for more and deep and hard. Hannibal's mattress lay close by on the ground, ripped and torn from his rage, but Will wasted no time crawling onto it, giving in to the desperate, primal need to sink to his elbows and knees and bend his back like a cat, pushing his ass into the air. Will looked over his shoulder and Hannibal snarled trough his fangs, eyes rolling back at the sight as he positioned himself behind Will at wolf speed and thrust back deeply inside his Omega before he could take another breath.

Will trembled, his insides still thriving and riding on his previous release as a new pressuring heat already started to build inside his belly. Their coupling became frantic, desperate, painfully necessary as Hannibal made Will's whole body shake with every thrust forward and laced ruthless fingers around his chin, pulling backwards and forcing Will's head up. Will was filled with the entire length and girth of his massive alpha, but still his body was on fire, in search for more. More, more, more of Hannibal, as the Omega in him knew there was. He almost howled in relief when he felt the root of Hannibal's cock starting to thicken inside of him. “Yes, Yes,” he moaned and sputtered against his quivering arms, encouraging Hannibal, who howled and scraped his teeth into the back of Will's neck when the Omega thrust down onto the swelling of his cock. He was growing, bigger, wider, fuller with every thrust and if he was afraid to tear his sweet virgin Omega he would be the only one, because Will, delirious with the heat and pleasure and savage need, bore down on the Alpha's knot like it hurt to be without it. And in a sense, that was true.

Hannibal hauled Will's body up, pressing his front to the Omega's trembling back as he kept fucking his pliant body and growled in his mate's ear. It became harder and harder to move with the knot expanding in Will's body, but he kept rutting against Will's ass as he held his hands flat and hard against the Omega's belly, feeling himself moving beneath the skin. Will's cock was full hard again as he pushed back on the knot, short thrusts with his hips as he was trapped around the large bulge inside him. Finally, finally, fucking finally, the ache inside him seemed to stop screaming, and to bleed out into a puddle of the purest golden syrup of warm, spreading pleasure. This. This was it. This was what he had been looking for. This was what forever felt like. 

Hannibal's hand on his cock set him off again, and as he clenched down hard around the Alpha's cock and cried with his head thrown back against Hannibal's shoulder. His Alpha followed after him, beautifully stroked and played by Will's squeezing, rippling insides. Will felt himself filled with streams of thick release, deep, deep inside the empty place that had begged him for something, to be filled, to be nursed. This was it. This was what had been missing. Will's second orgasm was eye-crossing and deliciously painful as it ran up all the way to his jaw, making his teeth tingle and rattle in his mouth, his insides throbbing and pulsing around the still pouring semen. Bittersweet pleasure.  
Hannibal's arms were tight around him, still thrusting against the obstruction and quivering from the power of his orgasms that seemed ripped from him with every pull. His throat bore a continuous purr of deep, dark content as his nose came up under Will's gland again, inhaling sharply at the skin. Sharp teeth grazed the skin there and Will remembered something far away in the mind that was not yet returned to him. There was a promise there, beneath that skin. An eternity. A bite. A bond. 

He stiffened when he felt the tip of a fang against his skin and Hannibal stilled inside him. For a moment neither of them moved, or breathed, before Hannibal pulled away from his throat and wrapped Will close to him, letting them fall to their side on the mattress as they spooned together, bound by the knot inside Will's body. He was in bliss, thoroughly, to the tips of every single hair on his body. He didn't stop trembling and suffering, a rumble rising from their chests. Never before had he been so sated and warm and safe. Everything, everything was right. He clenched around the right amount of fullness within him and Hannibal shuddered behind him, wrapping his arms tightly around the Omega. 

His body calmed. His heartbeat slowed. His breathing became even. For the first time in a week, he could let himself rest. Will closed his eyes and curled back into his Alpha's warm body as the wild animal inside him fading into slumber. It was sated and ready to give back what it had taken away. 

It was ready to give him back Will Graham.

One breath, two breaths.......Will's eyes opened. Pupils tightened, blood drained from his face. His vision became clear and wide. The thick fog had lifted from his mind.

“Oh....

…...oh God.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this one! I must admit I struggled with it a little! I wanted to set the right mood AND update fast! I rewrote the whole thing three times but voila, here it is! ^.^ I was overjoyed with all the comments and love last time and I was so inspired to write that I just dove hardcore into it! Thank you all so so much for your support and for reading! You guys really are amazing I am very overwhelmed every time! Much love, Katherine!  
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl/activity](url)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I gave up the hope that you would present for me many moons ago,” Hannibal said in the same lazy voice he had used before, not at all riled up by the accusation. “But I will not deny it's everything I could have wished for.” Will's ears flamed red as he turned his head away from the affectionate nudges. “It was deliberate. That letter. Your scent...,” his anger spiked, his nostrils flared when all he heard behind him was an endeared chuckle. “I had no way of knowing, but it never hurts to try,” Hannibal said into his ear and Will shuddered against him. Hannibal and him, their lives and attraction had been a web of obsession and pain. And now he was trapped in this situation where his body had suddenly decided for him that he belonged to the monster of which he had wanted to free himself. It seemed like faith's cruel, cruel joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick update, because you all make me so happy, and I'm stuck at home with the flu :-P! ^.^ Thank you so so much for reading!!! <3 <3 <3

Everything inside Will was still. He wondered, briefly, if he had died there, in those arms that wrapped around him. The noise, the pain, the fog, the endless furious screams were gone and instead there was nothing but his own breathing, his calming heartbeat, the steady rush of blood inside his veins. It was overwhelming, this silence after such violence within. A blissful peace that made his insides sway like the gentle rocking of a floating boat. 

But with that peace came room inside the walls of his mind, forever dented and scratched by the nails of the wild beast that had roamed there. And that room brought clarity, a space to remember who he was. Where he was. What he had done. Presenting evidence like a slide show behind his eyes as he grew colder and stiller as silent minutes ticked away.

He felt the strong arms around his bare waist, pulling him closer into the broad, hairy chest against his naked back. He heard the gentle purr that rose from behind him and felt a searching nose pushing onto the crook of his neck. The air was hot and slow, the rumble against his shoulder blades a low vibration on his his skin. Will didn't have to look to remember the orange eyes of blood and gold, the sharp teeth, the naked, damaged skin. The room smelled of winter sky and autumn rain and unmistakably of sex, as blood and sweat and musk hung heavy in the air around them. The floor around the mattress was littered with broken furniture that lay scattered all around them in the aftermath of... of......

“Oh God,” Will whimpered weakly, tensing from the panic that rose hard and fast to the surface and clenching involuntarily around Hannibal, still buried deep inside his body. He felt a hitched breath against the back of his neck. “Do that again and I'll...,” Hannibal started, voice in a chokehold, but Will's body shuddered and his hips jerked, blindly and uncontrollably searching for a way to freedom, escape, room to breathe. His heart was in his throat as his muscles contracted around the intrusion and Hannibal groaned behind him, shuddering against him with a stutter of his hips as he placed one hand on Will's belly to try and keep him steady. Will felt a stingray of pleasure at the buckle against his insides and the new release of warm liquid inside him, and he sobbed at the unwanted twitch of his own cock. 

He released a breath through pursed lips and forced himself to stop straining against Hannibal's hold on him as he folded into himself with trembling shoulders, hands clutching at his ribcage. Inside his head there were flashes of images coming back to him, hot and hard, and his throat began to feel tight. He remembered the letter, seeing Hannibal in his cell and feeling the wrecking ball of his scent filling his nostrils, making him lose all control. The hospital bed, Hannibal's fingers on his throat. The touches, the words, the table – oh God, oh God, oh God. He felt it everywhere, remembered it everywhere. His ribs felt tight, his lungs too small, and his breathing became shallow, short, less and less satisfying. Cold sweat broke out in his neck as he struggled against the tight arms around his waist, and wheezed for air that didn't seem to be there. “Shhh.....,” Hannibal's voice soothed against him as he placed an open hand on Will's sternum from behind and gently pressed down. “Just breathe. Follow me.” Will felt the slow expansion of the sturdy chest against his back and tried to follow, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply through his nose, before feeling Hannibal releasing the air against the back of his neck.

Slow and gentle, in and out, hold and release. Finally, with that broad hand on his chest, Will found air in his lungs and felt his heartbeat slowing down. That voice against his ear, soothing him, it sounded so much more familiar than before, when they... Will knew Hannibal, too, had come to his senses. There was a silence as they both breathed, holding still as Will's shoulders hunched vulnerably forward. “We're stuck,” he said, voice hoarse and small, but very much his own. His body was still trembling and weak and before he could stop himself, his muscles contracted again around the large knot that was buried inside. Hannibal made a choked noise behind him, thighs trembling against the back of Will's legs. “Yes,” Hannibal uttered, more air than sound. “It appears so.” A flat hand ran over Will's chest, grazing the bite mark above his nipple before stroking a tender thumb over his collarbone. “God,” Will breathed, lost in the fear and bewilderment that still clawed at his throat, and the curling branches of pleasure that grew when either of them moved. The hand touched his forehead, gentle and unrecognizable as it pushed against the skin, lolling Will's head back onto a strong, bare shoulder. This was a dream. It had to be. One crazy, twisted dream. 

Will wanted to shake off that touch, lift his head and move away as far as he would be allowed, but instead, he let himself be lead and rested against warm skin and steady bones. He had felt the silence and the dread, but there was more to feel inside his body. He wished to ignore it, but now it seemed to settle so deeply within him that that was no longer an option. His body felt consumed by the licking flames of his pleasure which had left a heavy, satisfying blanket of soft ashes on his skin. He was filled, complete, and his body sang its approval from deep within his loins. 

He clenched involuntarily at the thought, unable to stop himself, making Hannibal's hips snap further into him and brush right against his abused prostate. Without having touched himself, Will's oversensitive body convulsed through an orgasm as Hannibal shuddered violently inside him and stroked flat hands over Will's twitching torso. The pleasure was maddening, ripping violently at his insides, and left him blind and deaf, clawing at whatever his hands could reach as his belly collapsed in a quivering wildfire of liquefying pleasure. Will sobbed, thrashing in the firm hold Hannibal had on him, and shivered through the release that left him boneless and burned.

“Please, no more,” Will whimpered and begged, as Hannibal gently stroked his fingers through his hair. “Just try to relax,” Hannibal said in a hushed voice against his ear, bringing his fingers to Will's cheeks and wiping the skin. Though wet with tears, Will hadn't even realized he was crying. “This could take up to an hour.” The words washed over him and Will's lips tightened. An hour. After this week, what was an hour? Will closed his eyes and gave into exhaustion, sagging against Hannibal in an effort to relax himself and stave off more orgasms. There was no fight left in him.

“I must apologize for my earlier behavior,” Hannibal gently broke through the silence, when their bodies were breathing as one. His tone of voice had a certain fragility that Will was not familiar with. A sense of shame, disgraced, to be anything less than a true gentleman. Will could have laughed at it, if only he remembered how. He felt Hannibal's fingers on his back, stroking up and down his sore skin. Bruises were probably already forming underneath. Hannibal sighed against his neck. “I was rather... overwhelmed.” The hot stream of air felt like a tingle against the drying sweat on his skin. Will swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as something inside him wavered. Hannibal must have been as much overtaken and unprepared as he had been, safe for the part where he knew he was an Alpha. Something uncontrollable, for such a controlling man, it was an almost cruel irony. 

“I'm an Omega,” Will whispered, clutching his arms tightly around himself. There was a screaming urge to deny it, but there was no point. No other possible explanation to any of it. He was dripping slick around a knot in his ass. He was an Omega. “You're an Omega,” Hannibal hummed in agreement as he pressed soft lips to the back of his neck. “My true and only Omega.” 

Will grew cold inside the cocoon of his hot skin and his breath stuttered at the feeling of featherlight presses of lips beneath his ear. His Omega, he said. Hannibal's Omega. “No, no, no, no...,” he mouthed, whispered, lips restless around the repeated word as he squeezed his eyes shut against the mattress under his head, burying his face into the white cover. Hannibal's arms tightened around him once before loosening. “Shhh, stay calm, easy breathing,” he whispered, commanded, and Will felt those words like a caressing stream of warm water against his skin. His body obeyed, went slack, and Will stopped his squirming. 

Hannibal. It had to be Hannibal. Will wasn't even truly surprised. It was not hard to remember the first time their eyes had met, many years before. It wasn't hard to remember every passing day since either. Something about Hannibal had always been alluring to him, there was a weakness, a path through unchartered territory that had always excited him. He had never denied that their connection was more and stronger and much much deeper than he could ever give shape in his head. And the most dangerous of it was that he had always wanted to follow Hannibal on that path, in that dark place without morals or boundaries. It was why he had given up, those years ago and sent Hannibal away before he would tumble into Hell with him and become what he feared himself to be. But that forbidden path inside him, hidden from sight behind a fence of politeness, quiet evenings at home and hard work, it had never disappeared. It hadn't even faded.

And now Hannibal said he was his, that they belonged together, Alpha and Omega. Biologically speaking, Will believed him. He believed him because he felt it too, and there was no doubt in his mind that that part was true. Physically they were an obvious match, but he had not forgotten who Hannibal really was, behind the skin. He had escaped that Hannibal, successfully, years ago. Now he was here with him, on the floor....“Oh God,” he breathed again, and felt Alpha lips smiling against his neck.

“I have never seen anything more beautiful,” Hannibal's voice stroked at him and Will bit his lip, stifling another moan when Hannibal's hips pressed close, pushing himself even deeper inside. “Ohhh,” Will whimpered shamefully in a mix of hopelessness and deep, deep pleasure. “I felt it when you presented,” Hannibal said, accent thick and voice hot against Will's neck. There was more than just the calm he had heard before. There was a warmth, a heat, excitement. “It awoke a primal yearning in me that only stopped screaming until I could touch you.” Will closed his eyes, knowing that feeling so well he could still relive the furious cries and the dragging nails inside his mind. 

“I felt it when you left your home,” Hannibal continued, lips to Will's ear and every word thick with his curling accent. “I felt it when you entered this building,” Will's head lolled back of its own accord, feeling Hannibal's smooth cheek against his stubble. “The moment I saw you I almost wept tears of joy.” Knuckles caressed his cheekbones, one hand pressed over his heart. “But when I smelled you, properly smelled you, my heart sang the most beautiful hymn,” lips pressed close to his temple and Will, despite everything he wished to do, melted back into the warmth his body so longed for, “praising you over any God.”

“I heard it,” Will admitted weakly, cradled safely by arms that stilled the rising battle within. His mind tried, tried so hard, to remember the faces of his family. To remember what they sounded like, smelled like, what they talked about during dinner. But right now, it wasn't there. His body craved but one touch, and his mind remembered only one voice. A voice that caressed him like a warm Summer breeze. “We are connected,” Hannibal spoke softly, humming the words close to his ear. A nose inhaled against his neck and Will remembered a memory wrapped in misty pleasure, the hint of teeth that scraped against his flesh, his throat, his glands. Hannibal inhaled the scent of him with his nose pressed into the dip of Will's shoulder. “You smell like autumn rain, falling in the woods. The decay of dead leaves on wet soil,” Hannibal murmured, positively worshipping Will with his voice as he held on to his naked belly with two flat hands. Will shuddered, for reasons all wrong, but he couldn't be helped. “Why is this happening?” he said, broken words hissed between his teeth. He didn't look back, not even when a chin rested on his shoulder. “Why now?” He knew he sounded frightened and resented every bit of it as he tried not to sink inside the warm pool of golden Alpha male.

“You were ready now,” Hannibal said patiently, running gentle fingers down his sides. Will's body ached for that touch, reeled under it, but inside his head he fought the mindless desire under his skin with whatever he had left in him. This was Hannibal who was touching him, who had fucked him – far, far away from his life and his home. Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal fucking Lecter. And the cruel joke was, every part of him allowed it, craved it, needed it. It was all so, so wrong. Sick. And he knew, without a doubt in his mind, that it was everything Hannibal had ever wanted. 

Will froze when a hideous thought suddenly crept through his head. “It was you,” he pushed out through his clenched teeth. “You did this to me.” He swallowed hard, angry, remembering just where it had all gone wrong. “That letter...,” he finally twisted his head to face Hannibal, watching one sharp cheekbone, and an amber eye close to his face. Hannibal smiled at him, an honest joy to see him as he ran his nose along the side of Will's. It was animal devotion that could have made Will weep in anger, weakness, boneless desire.

“I gave up the hope that you would present for me many moons ago,” Hannibal said in the same lazy voice he had used before, not at all riled up by the accusation. “But I will not deny it's everything I could have wished for.” Will's ears flamed red as he turned his head away from the affectionate nudges. “It was deliberate. That letter. Your scent...,” his anger spiked, his nostrils flared when all he heard behind him was an endeared chuckle. “I had no way of knowing, but it never hurts to try,” Hannibal said into his ear and Will shuddered against him. Hannibal and him, their lives and attraction had been a web of obsession and pain. And now he was trapped in this situation where his body had suddenly decided for him that he belonged to the monster of which he had wanted to free himself. It seemed like faith's cruel, cruel joke.

Teeth started to graze against his throat again, Will's breath stuttered and his body froze. “I wish you would let me bite you so I could show you what you already know,” Hannibal said, a dark edge around his words. “We belong together in every way nature has provided.” Will whimpered, feeling his body weakening and his ass growing even slicker around Hannibal's knot. “No, no,” he moaned, forcing himself to hold still and fighting the urge to grind down against Hannibal's pelvis. “I want us to be bonded. Entirely,” Hannibal said with an earnest voice, filled with longing. “No,” Will gasped again. Their embrace was tight and strong and lasted several seconds too long until Hannibal loosened his grip on him. He didn't speak, but held a low rumble in his chest.

“You knew about me.” Will stuttered after a short silence, breath raging in his tight chest. “You knew I was an Omega.” Hannibal melted against his back and exhaled against his skin. “I have hoped,” he admitted, “and I have waited.” Will gasped when lips kissed his ear. He had waited. Waited for Will to present, while he himself had never, ever even entertained the possibility. Never had Hannibal mentioned this to him. “I never even knew you were an Alpha,” Will breathed, shaking his head as he felt Hannibal's forehead against his hair. “It wasn't in my best interest to tell anyone,” Hannibal said, a small smile stretching against Will's skin, which caused it to tighten as waving heat pulsed inside his body. “Of course,” Will said, soft and dry. “Super strength, speed, eyes... convenient traits for the Chesapeake ripper.”

They lay in silence, locked in their embrace and Will could feel exhaustion crawling on his bones like maggots on the dead. He wished to stay awake, to understand, to fight everything he could fight, just to say he had tried, but there was nothing left in him to give. “Sleep now,” Hannibal spoke into his hair. “We won't have much longer than an hour, maybe two.” 

Will swallowed, blinking in confusion. “Before what?” he asked, voice hoarse. Hannibal breathed a small chuckle and caressed the skin of his arm with soft strokes. “Before your heat will demand us to do all of this again,” he said and Will bit his lip to stifle a moan as he jerked his hips in pure and utter shock. “Oh God.” Helpless desperation mingled with shameful desire inside. Hannibal bit gently on his shoulder and curled up, body soft and loose with sleep.

Minutes ticked away before Will could close his eyes as he stared into the wrecked prison cell. “I'm an Omega,” he said, quietly into the room, shivering against the delicious heat of Hannibal's body. Hannibal's lips pressed under his earlobe as he hummed against his skin. “You're my Omega.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fuck. No. We can't keep doing this,” Will cursed, shoving himself up on his arms and off the hairy chest to look Hannibal in the eyes, by which he only pressed himself further down on the Alpha's cock. Will stifled a whimper inside his throat as Hannibal openly showed his appreciation by holding the Omega's hips down tightly with both hands. Their eyes met, tiger gold and ocean depths. Hannibal blinked, a small smile on his lips as he wiped a curl out of Will's eyes and stared back up at him. “You're in heat, Will. What do you presume is going to happen?” he asked, sincere, endeared by Will's naivety.

On the inside of his eyes, Will was being held down to the ground by strong, Alpha arms, forced on his back as he watched a broad chest rocking over him, onto him. He was being fucked hard and fast by a large Alpha cock that drove deep inside his body until he was fuller than he knew he had ever been. It was hot and strong and wet and it went on and on, growing hotter and wetter still as he heard himself begging for hard and deep and more, more, more. The air around him grew rich with the scent of their mating, sweat poured down their burning skin and then... Will opened his eyes from his dream and found himself empty on a mattress of the prison floor.

“Fuck,” he whimpered, arching his back as he reached for his hard, dripping cock against his belly. He was so wet, so hard, so desperate to be touched. Everything below the belt and above the knees was screaming from the agonizing emptiness he felt inside and in a frantic search for something to press back on. He was dripping obscenely as slick, hot like fire, poured from between his ass cheeks, down to his knees and soaking through the mattress he had slept on. 

His hand on his cock added nothing but a strain to his aching need and Will whined like a wounded animal before he sat himself upright with wild, searching eyes. He snarled wantonly when he saw Hannibal fast asleep on his back beside him, in all his naked glory. The fog that had blinded Will's heated mind returned to him in all its intensity and he whined pitifully at the sight of his exposed and available Alpha. The flames within Will were scorching, restlessly maddening, and all he could think about was how much Hannibal's touch on him, inside him, had become a violent necessity. 

He had to have it now, now, fucking now. He moved to his knees to crawl close to the sleeping Alpha and felt the slick seeping from between his cheeks onto his thighs, along with a stream of the Alpha's semen that had still been deeply embedded inside his body. The scent of their essences mixed together made Will's cock bounce stiffly against his belly as he whimpered under his breath, feeling it wade around him like a soft blanket against the winter cold.

He leaned over the sleeping form of his Alpha, who didn't wake under his stare. Hannibal's eyes shifted beneath his closed lids, indicating how deeply he was under and Will wondered briefly if what he saw in his sleep was similar to Will's own heated dream. The Alpha's cock, perhaps peaked by Will's pheromones that lay thick in the air around them, or the mingling scent of their sex, or maybe the filthy dream inside his head, caused him to lie completely hard and thick against the coarse, graying hair of his belly. 

Will looked at the thick veins, the hard, gorged flesh and the large, swollen head that already shone wet with his own fluid and he was overcome by a clawing, untamable need to have it inside his body, to fill the painfully empty void. There was room for nothing else inside Will's heated mind and, bold as the Omega inside him presented itself to be, Will climbed over the sleeping body of Hannibal and straddled his hips with his slick thighs. 

“Fuck,” Will whimpered again. The nearness and the feel of that warm skin against his was already a soothing balm to the burning ache. Hannibal rolled his head to the side, remaining in a deep slumber as Will's hands ran through the thick fur of his chest and over the strong, broad shoulders. Will needed him. He needed his Alpha. He reached behind him for the big, hard Alpha cock that poked against his back and lifted his hips to place the large tip against his hole. No preparation, this time. 

The thick head pushed against his entrance as he lowered himself, feeling it breach the rim as it slowly slipped past the ring of muscles and inside his body. “Fuck, ohh fuck,” a painful moan ripped from Will's throat, as he felt the burning stretch of his insides spreading a most glorifying pleasure to his bones. This was what he wanted, this was what he needed. This. This. This.

Hannibal's head lolled back on the mattress, a groan rising from deep within his chest as Will lowered himself further, all the way, until his ass was flat against the root of Hannibal's thick cock. The stretch inside him was deep and wide and too much for his inexperienced body, but the fill was wrecking him with entwined agony and ecstasy that made him sob out against his own trembling shoulder. “Ohhhh, fuck, yes.” 

Hannibal did not wake, but the growl that rose from his throat was now consistently there as drops of transpiration formed in his hairline and his hands grabbed blindly for Will's hips with nails clawing at the skin of his thighs. Will gasped, doubling over on Hannibal's chest as he started to rock his hips against his body, moving his Alpha in and out of him with harsh pants from between his lips and a continuous flutter of his lashes. 

Hannibal's eyes rolled behind his lids, his head moved restlessly against the mattress, his nails sunk deep into the flesh of the Omega's thighs as Will fucked himself on his cock with high whines and low grunts. Teeth flashed sharp behind the Alpha's lips before a vicious snarl ripped from his throat and tiger eyes of gold and blood suddenly sprung open. 

Wide, alert, but confused with sleep, those bloodied eyes searched wildly for his Omega and a violent growl escaped his throat when he looked up at Will straddling his hips. Hands tightened on Will's skin as the Omega sunk back down around Hannibal, feeling him deeper inside than ever before as their eyes connected in the heated fury and fog of their frenzied need.

Will wailed with every thrust down and saw the predator eyes of his mate rolling back when he clenched around him and took him in all the way, roaring at the filled, stretched feeling his body had been dying for. Will continued to move his hips until Hannibal reached for them with strong hands and tilted his pelvis forward to change the angle of his cock inside Will's body. 

This position made Will shudder violently on top of him when Hannibal successfully aimed for his prostate, and without a chance to recover, Hannibal pulled Will down by the neck, claiming the smaller man in a hungry, violent kiss between sharp teeth, that left them both with lips swollen and bleeding as they brushed and licked and tasted each other. In their embrace, Hannibal was holding down Will's body with both arms around his back and fucked into him, hard and fast and cruelly as Will cried out in long, high bursts through his nose.

Will's prostate was abused with brutal force and Hannibal held him down until the Omega sobbed and cried real tears into his neck from the maddening over-stimulation that set him alight with a torturous, blinding bliss. The Alpha licked a hot strip across Will's cheek, catching the salty tears before he released the back of his neck and pushed Will back up on his body again. “Ride me,” his voice croaked, watching through hooded lids as he slid his hands over Will's quivering belly. Will trembled and arched as he leaned back and lowered himself further, releasing a high-pitched howl when he felt himself stretching deeper again around the Alpha inside of him. 

The Omega's noises made Hannibal run sharp nails over his Will's lithe, smooth body, leaving red marks on already marked skin. Will rolled his hips, lifting himself off of Hannibal's cock before forcing him back into the tight, slick hole of his body with the grace of a rider on a horse. It was a seductive dance of his slender body, pushing back and forth to work himself over his Alpha, who scratched desperately against his thighs and belly as Will picked up the speed to chase after his own hungry hunt for pleasure. His prostate was still swollen from their previous mating, and every drag of Hannibal's fat head against the little nub inside of him made his thighs quiver and his cock leak on itself.

He bounced himself faster on his Alpha, throwing back his head with closed eyes as he pushed his hips forwards and fucked himself on Hannibal's cock with real and true abandon. He was chasing something powerful, and – fuck, it felt so, so good. 

Hannibal moaned, growled, bared his teeth, voluntarily helpless under his mate as he watched his mate and ran wild hands over Will's body until he reached one hand around the Omega's cock. YES, Will's body screamed, arching into the fingers around him. Hannibal's hand rubbed against the sensitive skin of his cock, pumping him with his large hand and one smooth thumb on the slit while his own erection was still sliding in and out of Will's slick and tight, pulsating body.

Will felt the magnificent fullness, the hot, thick cock against his prostate, dragging inside of him with every roll of his hips, and the large, strong hand on his leaking cock. It was perfection. Never had his life been better. Never had it been complete. Will felt his orgasm like a tight fist deep in his core as he clenched hard, hard, hard around Hannibal's cock and threw his head back with a loud, high, Omega wail as he spurted white shots of cum over Hannibal's chest and hit the underside of the Alpha's chin. Never before had he felt so good and he never wanted it to stop. 

He didn't still his hips, insatiably hungry as Hannibal held his thighs and fucked up through the clenched, tightening of his body. Meeting his thrust harder and harder as Will felt the now familiar thickening at the base of Hannibal's cock starting to form against his ass cheeks, rubbing the outside of his opening. Will bounced against the swelling knot, crying out at the wideness against his ass, until Hannibal pushed himself up and held down Will's hips hard, forcing the knot inside the Omega's swollen hole with powerful thrusts. Will snarled, Hannibal growled, both snapped and nipped at each other mouths with vicious teeth as the knot stretched Will so far he saw nothing but sharp, red stars before his eyes. It hurt him. It hurt him so, so good.

Will fell boneless against Hannibal's chest and the remains of his own release that still clung to the Alpha's skin. Hannibal, however, refused to let him go slack as he grabbed both his arms and shoved himself as far as he could go inside Will's body before holding the Omega tight against him and released deep, deep inside his mate. Will felt himself filling again and all he could think about was bliss, bliss, pure fucking bliss. It was so right, so very right to feel himself so whole with his Alpha's seed inside his belly. For once, he was happy. His mind peacefully void of the noises that lived there. Purpose fulfilled.

Will's body was aggressively manhandled by another orgasm that ripped through his loins when the knot inside his hole grew into its full size and got caught behind the rim of his opening. He spasmed against Hannibal's sticky chest as the Alpha stroked large hands over his back and shoulders, as far as he could reach, holding on to his weakened Omega's shivering body. Will buckled, feeling more semen spurt from his own, untouched cock and clenched his body harder around Hannibal, who, in his turn, groaned at him and coated his insides further with his release. They were a continues mess of moans and cries, whimpers and growls and pleasure, pleasure, so much mind numbing, maddening pleasure. 

They stilled after long, long moments in each other's embrace as Hannibal let himself fall backwards on the mattress, bringing Will along with him through their connection. Will buried his nose under Hannibal's chin, scenting his glands and accidentally smearing his nose with the remains of his own semen. They breathed, chest to chest, as silence settled around them. Every now and then, one of them shifted inside or clenched around the other, and together they would shudder and gritted their teeth, until they could both take no more. 

There was a thin blanket on the floor, belonging on the prison bed, and Hannibal managed to drag it over Will to shield him from the naked air and the naked eye. Will's hands rested on Hannibal's shoulders as the Alpha stroked lazily over Will's spine and for another moment, there was that white cloud, that unfamiliar silence within him that made him want to close his eyes, ready to doze off with his nose buried in the Alpha's neck

“They brought us food,” Hannibal spoke close to his ear, startling Will with the sudden smooth tones of his foreign accent. The Omega cracked open one eye, looking up at his mate and then following the direction of his gaze. In front of the hatch in the glass door, there was a food tray with its contents hidden by a gray, plastic cover on top. “Not that we are in any position to get it,” the Alpha groaned, stretching his back as he ran his hands under the sheets and over Will's ass until his fingers brushed exactly where their bodies were joined. Will didn't feel it. He didn't feel it when Hannibal reached up to nuzzle his jaw and he didn't feel the deep purr that rose from the warm chest underneath him. 

That tray, that stupid plastic tray, the sight of it cleared the fog from his mind and the heat from his belly like a vacuum. “Fuck,” his shoulders shook at the visual proof of a world outside this room and he could almost hear the bursting of the bubble they had created for themselves. Someone had been here. They had been seen together, sleeping, or worse. Maybe Alana, maybe even Jack. Maybe all of them. Everyone. They had seen them losing their minds on each other, him and Hannibal, mating like rabid animals. And what if they reached out to Molly? What if they told her about him? Showed her what was happening?

“Fuck. No. We can't keep doing this,” Will cursed, shoving himself up on his arms and off the hairy chest to look Hannibal in the eyes, by which he only pressed himself further down on the Alpha's cock. Will stifled a whimper inside his throat as Hannibal openly showed his appreciation by holding the Omega's hips down tightly with both hands. Their eyes met, tiger gold and ocean depths. Hannibal blinked, a small smile on his lips as he wiped a curl out of Will's eyes and stared back up at him. “You're in heat, Will. What do you presume is going to happen?” he asked, sincere, endeared by Will's naivety.

Will looked down at the familiar face of his old psychiatrist, his long-lost... friend had never been the appropriate term... Hannibal. Dr. Hannibal Lecter. For the first time since their reunion, he had the sense, the clarity and the angle to look and see him like the man he had once known. It had been so long, but even after all these years, his bone structure remained a sin. He had changed in appearance, the short, silver hair, the deepened wrinkles around his eyes and the slight softening of his waist, and yet he was exactly like Will remembered him. “When will it end?” he asked with shaky breaths, trying to ignore the caressing hands on his sides and the wide knot inside his body. “Soon,” Hannibal answered, touching dry fingertips to Will's pale skin. “An Omega's heat lasts mere days.”

Amber eyes shone up at Will, who swallowed at the heat that spread across his chest and face under the Alfa's open stare. “And then I can go home?” he asked, letting his eyes drop to the gray chest hair under his fingers. Hands ran up over his bare back before gently pressing down on his shoulder blades, folding Will's body back against the Alpha's chest. Will followed the guiding hands, feeling his weak muscles eager to comply as he placed his cheek on Hannibal's ribs. The knot inside of him pulled at his opening and Will heard a sharp inhale against his curls as he tried to stop his thighs from quivering. 

“Do you know what we are, Will?” Hannibal said close to his ear, his voice soft and patient and much like he remembered it from those days in his office. Will scraped the scruff of his face as he tried to lift his chin on Hannibal's sternum. “You're an Alpha,” he said, not trying to hide the uneasiness in his voice. “I'm an Omega,” he looked up, but failed to see anything but the stretch of lips over a defined jawline. “You are my Omega,” Hannibal corrected him. “I am your Alpha.” The tone was light, but the inflictions were bright and clear.

A hand stroked over Will's shoulder to the back of his neck, but the Omega twisted his head away at the touch and the implication.“We are not bonded,” he hissed under Hannibal's chin. “You didn't bite me.” He felt the Alpha tilting his head in an attempt to look at him. “No,” Hannibal confirmed and their eyes met briefly, before both felt the strain in their necks and sagged back down into their previous positions. “But we are destined mates. You presented... for me.” Will heard the rumble of Hannibal's voice deep inside his chest as he lay with his cheek against the warm skin. “I don't know what that means,” he said, feeling fingers brushing through the messy curls on his head.

Hannibal breathed, and the rise and fall of his chest cradled Will with a steady, strong pace. “The male Omega is a most rare occurrence, Will,” rumbled the warm chest against his ear. “They only present when their subconscious mind finds a need for it, and when they meet a highly compatible Alpha with whom they want to bond.” There was a soft purr that rumbled beneath the words and spread throughout the Alpha's body as he stroked Will's back with strong, steady, open hands. Will tried not to melt into the touch and pressed his lips into a tight, stubborn line. “I wouldn't say want,” he said defiantly. “It wasn't a choice.”

Hannibal's hands ran lower, cupping around his ass and sliding spread fingers along where his cock disappeared into Will. His touch made the Omega clench down hard as bursts of deep pleasure shot from his opening to his belly button. “Don't... Fuck,” Will hissed, holding himself still against his Alpha as Hannibal slid his hands back up and settled on Will's waist with a content sigh. They lay there, together, both shuddering lightly from the pleasure that fizzed beneath their skin.

“So what now?” Will said against Hannibal's collarbone “I have to come back with every heat?” The thought alone grabbed him by the throat as he envisioned Molly, his home. He had a life, a comfortable place in the world where everything he saw inside his mind could safely stay there. He didn't know how often an Omega went through heats like these, but it would certainly interfere with everything he had worked so hard for, and with who he had worked so hard to be. If he had to be with Hannibal... If he had to come back to Hannibal...

There was a sigh inside the chest he was using as a pillow. “Will,” Hannibal said, patience and endearment laced around his voice as he stroked those restless hands down Will's messy curls. “Our connection is extraordinarily strong. I would even dare to say it is the ultimate. We are mates by the choice of our deepest, most primal subconsciousness, and even unbonded, living without each other will be nothing but unbearable,” he spoke gently, never ceasing his caresses as Will's breathing stopped, hitched and stuttered. “W-what?” he stammered, trying to lift his head up as he felt his chest pulling tight like a vacuum. “That can't be true.” His ocean eyes were widened and searching as they met a flash of gold.

“We will discuss all of it in due time, Will, do not stress yourself. Right now you are tired and you are in heat,” Hannibal said, calm, like a teacher lecturing a slow student, and Will bit hard onto his own lip as he felt his temperature rising hot red. “You're lying to me,” he hissed and knitted his eyebrows tight in an outraged frown, hands resting on Hannibal's sternum. Hannibal ran a soothing thumb over the wrinkled skin between his eyes and smiled that rueful smile he often used when pained. “You can choose not to fight this. It will not change the outcome,” he said, tilting his head to one side as he dropped his hands from the Omega's face. Will breathed, feeling weak and breakable under those eyes as he looked down at his fingers in Hannibal's chest hair. They drew meaningless patterns on Hannibal's skin in an unconscious, nervous gesture. “What did you expect?” Will asked with a humorless chuckle. “For me to pack my bags and move in here?”

“I'll admit the circumstances are unfortunate,” Hannibal said, looking around his wrecked, once stylishly decorated, prison cell. “But this is nothing we cannot overcome.” Will followed his gaze around the room and huffed, a bitter laugh in his throat. He had walked from the man years ago, and here Hannibal was thinking this prison cell was the only reason they weren't shacking up. Will breathed in deep, feeling stuck on the tiny tip of that gigantic, hidden iceberg under water. “I have a wife,” he said, catching Hannibal's eye. “I have a family.” He tried to keep his eyes on Hannibal this time, hard, steady, real, but Hannibal merely smiled at his words, stroking his cheek with his fingers. “I am aware and unsurprised that you have found your much needed window dressing, Will,” he said, cupping Will's face with loving fingers as he stroked a curl behind his ear. The smile around his lips stretched, showing a hint of sharp teeth behind soft lips as the tiger eyes glistened with predatory pleasure, and blood. “But you were always mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for making it to chapter 6! :-D Hurray!! That means the world to me! I really hope you enjoyed it and that you are willing to come back for chapter 7! ;-) I really love reading your comments, the way you guys spoil me with kindness is beyond anything I coul have hoped for! I met the most amazing people, writing and posting here, I had no idea it could be this wonderful and addictive! Ohh and I promise there will be more info on the Omega/Alpha situation in future chapters! Much love! <3
> 
>  
> 
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How did you know I was an Omega?” Will asked, swallowing away the dry bread that lingered in his throat. Hannibal blinked, as if in a trance, bloody gold eyes never off the Omega. With those bare toes wiggling from underneath his sheet, he was as nonthreatening as a sunbathing lion. “I wasn't certain, I told you...,” he started, but Will held up his hand.“You suspected it. Why?” he demanded, pulling the blanket tight around his throat to cover every inch of skin. In the corner of his eye, the bright dot of the camera made him hunch over with unease.

Hannibal's words had slashed their way through Will, raw and vile and with a pain that felt ripping, exposing flesh and bone beneath his skin. Those words, they had been spoken so loving, when they had been so, so cruel. Will wanted nothing more for those words to hurt him, bruise him, to make him so angry he could lash out and growl, bite and spit fire at the man who seemed so eager to disrupt his well-earned family life, and merely smiled at the mention of everything important to him. But even when he tried to summon those feelings of outrage, they remained a distant vision in the embrace of his Alpha. Instead, he felt a warmth he couldn't shake, secure inside a cocoon of strong arms. He felt safe and soft and cherished and he wished such feelings, given their roots, would make him cry, claw, rebel...but familiar skin surrounded him and then the chest under his head became a white, fluffy cloud that he floated on, soft and warm and quiet. He fell asleep.

They were separated when Will woke up a short hour later, covered by the prison blanket drawn up to his shoulders. He rolled to his back and sat up, supported by his arms, and spotted his Alpha on the far end of the mattress with a thin, white sheet around his waist and a half eaten sandwich in his hands. Hannibal's eyes had already been watching, and scanned over Will's face with an unhidden spark that lit up his golden eyes when the Omega blinked sleepily at him.

“You should eat,” the Alpha said, pushing the gray tray towards him with a careful push of his fingers. Will eyed the plastic cups of water and bland, whitebread sandwiches with an unidentifiable spread. Tuna from a can, going by the scent. “But know that it pains me not being able to offer you something of... nutritional value and taste,” Hannibal said with longing eyes and disapproving, tightened lips as he shredded the bread between his teeth and chewed with a weak, unenthusiastic grinding of his jaw. “If I ever have the pleasure of meeting the hospital's cook, I will not neglect to teach him the finer points of the culinary arts.”

Will took a deep breath, blinking away the image that popped into his mind, of Hannibal harvesting the organs of a tied up, still living cook and instructing him on how to perfectly marinade his kidneys. Will watched Hannibal eating the stale bread and felt the disapproval, the disgust, the outrage the Alpha exuded towards his meal. He felt it deep down in his bones, without even needing to look at him.

“It must be torture for you to eat this food every day, given your proclivity for life's finer things,” he said, feeling nothing but both Hannibal's and his own distaste when he looked at the offered food in front of him. Hannibal looked up, and Will didn't miss the way his eyes burned hot over him at the mention of 'finer things'. He ignored the blood that pumped up to fill his cheeks and stared right back at the Alpha. “Yet you choose to be here, voluntarily.” 

Hannibal smiled fondly at his words, a small jerk of his lips around his mouth. “I close my eyes and eat my own cooking, at my own table,” he said, demonstrating as he shut his lids and let his shoulders sag in relaxation. Will knew it was just that easy for him to be elsewhere, even while locked within these four walls. “In your mind palace,” he said, and Hannibal's eyes popped open – redder, deeper, darker. “We've met there,” he said, leaning closer to Will, like a subconscious, magnetic pull was reeling them together. Will wet his lips with his tongue as he looked at the silver hair, the sharp bones, the paled skin. “We have,” he admitted. He could never forget those moments, where their minds had been aligned so perfectly they had been able to step into each other's worlds as one. Blurred, conjoined. It had been the darkest, most liberating feeling. Terrifying.

“When we bond, our meetings there will no longer be coincidental,” Hannibal said, a spark in his eyes as he leaned back to his previous position and took a casual sip from his cup of water. Will could only manage a grimace at the outrageous confidence behind those words, and turned his eyes back to the tray. Next to it were two folded, pale gray pieces of cloth that Will recognized by the color. “I think this is their way of asking us to put some clothes on,” Hannibal commented with a chuckle behind his teeth. “But I think that would be rather redundant, at least for another while.” 

Will basked in Hannibal's familiarity, which, after everything that had happened, felt exactly the way it shouldn't. It was comfort, a warm blanket that he wanted to bury himself in. A safe shade in the vicious sunlight. Will wished to hate it with the purest rage he could muster, but all that bitterness was lost in the sweet, fiery shimmer of the thick, foggy scent of autumn and winter and home.

When Will bent forward to pick up the tray, he was hit by another scent. One that curled dangerously in his nostrils and made his muscles tense. It was on the food. It was on the clothes. “Alana was here,” Will said, remembering how the thought of another presence had occurred to him before, before he had fallen asleep on top of and around Hannibal. A tight panic rose in his chest and he drew the blanket higher around his shoulders. She must have walked in here. “She probably saw us.” The thought was... it was mindbogglingly unacceptable. Even if they had been asleep, they would still have been connected, together. For him to be seen like that, with him, by her...

Hannibal's eyes shot up to the ceiling overhead. “Do you see that red, little light in the corner, Will?” he said, nodding to a small black square device with a red, steady light. “Everything that is said and done here is recorded, taped and watched by security,” he mentioned it as a side thought, not worth an extra blink, but Will felt himself gasping against the strangling, stabbing fear that flashed behind his ribs, squeezed his lungs and made his cheeks burn scorchingly, excruciatingly hot. “Oh God. Oh God, no. No, no, no” he stammered, trying to keep his breath steadily and his shoulders low as the shock spread like wildfire through his veins. 

“You don't even care that we were watched, doing what we did?” he spat at Hannibal, who was calmly sipping from his plastic cup of lukewarm water and watched him with amber eyes. “There is no shame in what we did,” Hannibal said, careful with his chosen words. “But I'll admit the notion is a little... intrusive.” Intrusive. Intrusive, he called it. It was a downright violation. Who could say what would happen to such tapes? “God. What if they show this to Molly?” Will wheezed, mostly to himself as he grabbed the hair on his temples between his fingers and bowed his head between his knees. 

He could picture it. Molly standing in the control room, watching Hannibal and himself doing the things they had done. The tears in her eyes before she looked away a stormed out of the room. He tried to build it in his head, picturing her screaming and yelling and brokenheartedly kicking a chair. He was desperately looking for that feeling of devastation, guilt, grief, but even with his skin hot with shame, he found it hard to feel anything over the way his body oozed pleasant warmth, sitting near Hannibal. 

“I doubt they will be so cruel to show such footage to your wife,” Hannibal stated dryly, handing him the untouched sandwich in the tray. “Eat.” Will did eat, tasting nothing, and he did drink, tasting the plastic of the cup. It didn't matter. He had not been hungry or thirsty to begin with He only felt the steadily rising heat behind his pelvis, the growing slick against the mattress, the half-hard cock against his thigh. And Hannibal, he was sitting there with his tousled hair, his bare chest, the toes that peaked from under the sheet. Inside him, the animal whined, high and desperate, for his Alpha.

He shook it off, hard and determined, as he ate his stupid, useless sandwich and tried not to feel Hannibal's eyes on his throat, or the red dot of the camera on the back of his head. “This is insanity,” he croaked, feeling the sandwich sit awkwardly in his stomach as he tightened fingers in his hair, huddled under the blanket. He glanced sideways after a silence, seeing Hannibal's eyes on him with a curious concern, hidden underneath dark, dark predatorial lust. “How did you know I was an Omega?” Will asked, swallowing away the dry bread that lingered in his throat. Hannibal blinked, as if in a trance, bloody gold eyes never off the Omega. With those bare toes wiggling from underneath his sheet, he was as nonthreatening as a sunbathing lion. “I wasn't certain, I told you...,” he started, but Will held up his hand.“You suspected it. Why?” he demanded, pulling the blanket tight around his throat to cover every inch of skin. In the corner of his eye, the bright dot of the camera made him hunch over with unease.

“It was numerous things,” Hannibal said after a moment of contemplation. “You are an extraordinary empath, for one.” An adoring squint of those eyes made Will's skin tighten. “Your talent is to see people in their truest form and to understand their motives, their emotions and their intentions, without needing a single word exchanged between you,” Hannibal leaned in closer, lids low on his eyes as he dipped his head to scent Will close to his shoulder. “So?” Will asked, instinctively inching closer and feeling his own eyes fluttering at the nearing heat, when he knew he should be leaning back. Hannibal smiled, revealing one fang behind his lips. “It is a very primal quality, instinct,” he practically purred in pleasure and self-indulgence. “That is what I recognized in you. That bestial spirit.”

Will's lips parted at the unhidden adoration in Hannibal's tone, and the very clear shimmer of arousal that poked through the words. He inhaled sharply, mouth dry and eyes wide as Hannibal's chest rumbled gently underneath skin and bone. “Dogs gravitate towards you, because you understand their needs,” he said. “You speak their language.” Will's lips twitched at the mention of his dogs. A notion of pride and grief both at once as he looked back at Hannibal, helplessly enchanted by his words. “And then there is your need for solitude, your love of the outdoors, your preference to lure instead of hunt.” 

Hannibal's words were warm, almost corporeal against his skin, kisses on frostbite. “God,” Will swallowed shakily, tightening his fingers in the blanket around his body. Hannibal stretched out his legs, revealing strong, hairy shins that peeked out from underneath the sheet. “And the lack of body hair...,” he added, an afterthought with a hint of teasing, and Will whipped his head back up to glower at the Alpha. “I can grow a beard in less than a week,” he bit back, running a hand over the days old scruff on his chin. He was an Omega, but he was not, by any means, effeminate. 

“But the rest of your body is smooth, and petite. Delicate,” Hannibal said, his voice factual, if not for the underlaying smolder around the brim of his eyes. Will saw it and bared his teeth at the man across from him. “I'm not petite. I'm average,” he said, color high and bright on his cheekbones at the implication. Hannibal smiled with teeth bared, running a subtle tongue over his lower lip. “Average is not a word I would use to describe you,” he said, running those tiger eyes over the blush on Will's neck and face.

Will turned away, huffing and wrapping two arms around his waist. He was smaller than Hannibal, yes. In every imaginable way, certainly. But he was not petite. He was not delicate, Goddammit. “Was that a satisfying answer to your question?” Hannibal probed, and Will shot him a sharp look. “You could have told me about your suspicion. There was a time we talked rather a lot,” he reminded Hannibal stiffly and ignoring the glimmering self-assuredness that always swam in the Alpha's temperance, even beneath the lustful, tiger eyes. “Will watched Hannibal's eyes lower briefly before meeting him again.

“I wanted it to take you by surprise,” he answered, his face softening with sincerity, and Will closed his eyes for a brief moment. “You were curious to see what would happen,” he said, soft spoken, remembering the cruel times he had heard those words. But Hannibal shook his head once, and pressed thoughtful fingers to his lips before he spoke. “Had you known about me, you might have chosen to never set foot inside this facility,” he answered and Will felt his mouth go dry. Hannibal had done everything in his power to claim him, to have him, to bring out the beast in him, he had no doubt and the thought scared him.

It also made him hot. Very, very, uncomfortably hot. It was a sharp stab deep inside his belly and it made a trickle of slick stain the blanket around his thighs. It was just there, beyond his control. “Is this what an Omega is?” Will moaned out his frustration as he squirmed, shifting on the dirty mattress. Hannibal's nostrils widened momentarily before their eyes met. Both knew where this was heading and there was no way to stop it. “You have a lot to learn about yourself, Will,” the Alpha said, subconsciously biting into his own bottom lip. “And the moment your heat ends, I will teach you everything you need to know.” Will heard Hannibal's breathing become tighter, less effortless, and he felt his own sync up. 

“Oh, I understand perfectly fine,” Will said, trying to keep his voice steady as he let the warm blanket slide an inch off his shoulders. “I am a slave to my own biology, my reproductive organs. I'm an animal.” Hannibal's eyes didn't miss the sliver of exposed skin and Will almost felt his hungry stare like a touch. Their conversation, however, did not waver. “On the contrary, Will,” Hannibal said, “becoming an Alpha or an Omega takes nothing away from who you are.” His eyes burned so deep, so passionate, it reminded Will of the times they had talked about Italy, art, cooking, ancient Greece. Then, it had been a spark. Now, it was the fires of hell. “It does, however, open up an extra layer of depth in your consciousness. One that was always there, but never truly experienced. It offers you your truest form of self-awareness. It's honest, pure, instinct.” Both men were slowly leaning forward on the mattress, chest heaving and pupils wide as Will felt another trickle of slick pouring from his body. Hannibal inhaled, clenched his teeth, and pulled up one corner of his lips. “It doesn't make us less, it makes us so much more,” he almost whispered, never breaking eye contact as Will shivered visibly under his words and arched his neck in an instinctual invitation he was not ready to make, or to understand. Hannibal's eyes almost fluttered, inching closer on the bed, but Will huffed at his words, clinging to his dignity and the blanket around his body.

“Honest and pure,” he murmured, swallowing hard as he shook his head, folding closer into himself. Hannibal pushed the tray from beside the bed with his bare foot, before he came to sit beside the Omega. “We instinctively know what is good for us,” the Alpha said gently, reaching out to cup Will's cheeks with his fingers. It earned the Alpha a burning stare of simultaneous lust and anger. Skin searched and pushed into his touch. “Good for us?” Will asked with silent outrage. “I'm nothing but a quivering, mindless mess.” He pulled the blanket from around his knees to show how they trembled with longing. “Being an Omega creates desires that I've never...”, but strong fingers on the bare skin of the back of that unsteady knee hushed him, and Hannibal placed a kiss below his ear. The smell of a campfire on a winter beach, with its worn wood and salty flames, was enough for Will to push his nose greedily against Hannibal's throat. 

“It doesn't create, Will, it only bares,” Hannibal spoke, lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “No pretense. No ethics. No more doubt.” They both pulled back, before leaping forwards again, searching each other's lips like pulling magnets in a blazing storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you sweet and fabulous people so so so so fucking much for reading and commenting and everything! Oh God, I can't even tell you how how much it means to me! I'm on a holiday right now but I couldn't not update because I'm a Hannigram addict, even if it is only short! I will update again later this week with the next part....which is smutty, smutty smut! (and a little more talk ;-) ) Hope you guys enjoyed this, even if it is just talking! <3 Love you much!
> 
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal sighed contently. “It doesn't create, Will. It only bares what is already inside,” he said, repeating words of their previous conversation, as if it hadn't been interrupted by a wild display of animalistic sex. Will didn't move, staring at the glass wall and the smudge of hand and face prints they had left behind. Hannibal's body rolled over, coming to spoon behind him as he ran a caressing hand down Will's arm. “The desire to be here with me was yours already, Will,” he spoke close to Will's ear, and the Omega grimaced at the goosebumps that rose on his skin, betraying how much the Alpha's nearness affected him.

Will felt himself being pulled into a kiss that strung a tight band of intrusive, inescapable pleasure around every nerve inside his body. Blinded, he reached for Hannibal's soft hair and laced his fingers through the strands as he breathed against the pink, open lips sliding against his. The gentle pressure he found was almost tender compared to the snapping teeth that had been there during their previous mating. It was forceful and demanding still, but their tongues slid together in what was more dance than combat.

Inside his chest, Will felt a feral flutter, sweeping against the layers upon layers of dust within him and celebrating the wild beating of his heart as Hannibal licked into his mouth, past his lips, and chased after his taste. Hannibal always tasted like smoke and wine and thick, rich sauce poured over red meat and it left Will hungry, hungry, hungry for everything more. He felt the blanket around his shoulders being pushed away by Hannibal's searching hands, but the air was not cold against his blazing skin. It was stroking, light, a chilling relief against the burn of the heat that sizzled and cracked beneath the surface and Will whined desperately when Hannibal growled against his mouth, shedding his own sheet from around his waist. 

The Alpha moved down to kiss the skin of Will's neck, inhaling and scenting the pale, sensitive flesh before his sharp teeth grazed his glands, making the Omega shiver and whimper against the hot, dangerous mouth on him. Hannibal moved searching lips to his shoulder, nosing at his collarbone before biting down his sharp fangs into pale flesh and drawing drops of bright blood to the surface. Will moaned openly, wantonly, when he felt his skin breaking under those piercing, sharp teeth and he laced his fingers tighter in Hannibal's short hair as the Alpha licked his blood into his mouth and sucked against the broken skin to gather all he could of the coppery taste. 

His hands slid over Will's belly down to the angry red, hard cock between his thighs and the keening Omega almost went completely slack in Hannibal's arms when fingers caressed the swollen head of his erection and grazed the heavy skin of his balls before pushing further down against his twitching, dripping hole. “Ohhh, yes, fuck yes,” Will pushed himself up on his knees to give Hannibal better access to his body and the Alpha pushed two shallow fingers into his wet, tight entrance. They pumped into him to the first knuckle only, gathering slick, twisting and probing before pulling back out, surprising Will and leaving him to snarl in displeasure at the Alpha beside him.

Hannibal bared his teeth, stained with blood, yet without real menace, before his strong hand curled around Will's hard shaft and started pumping the hot flesh with his naturally lubricated fingers. “Ohhh God,” Will moaned, feeling the slick skin of his sensitive cock sliding against the warmth of Hannibal's palm and building up a needy pressure in his balls. The touch was teasing, exploring, not meant to bring him to higher grounds. “Fuck, please.” It was almost torturous how that one hand pumped him, teasing and causing friction against the underside of his leaking head, while the other stroked up his thighs, his belly and over the nubs of his peaking nipples. Hannibal's lips traveled from his throat up to Will's mouth, capturing him back into wet, lazy kisses and sharp, playful nips.

The Alpha was toying with him, building up something that was already far across its border, and Will trembled at the overthrowing, fulfilling pleasure that was nothing but maddeningly unfair. It was so far from enough, and he knew his Alpha knew it, too. At this stage, this hysterical heat, they failed to understand anything more than pounce, take, breed, fuck. Nothing but the stretch and fill of his Alpha inside his body was enough to relieve the choking strain, cure the blinding madness, bring that unimaginable sense of satisfaction and peace inside Will's body and mind. But for now, he felt his insides clenching painfully around nothing and begging to be filled as his whole body throbbed at the teasing touches with the screaming need for more. 

His vocabulary was very limited at these moments where his heat seared through his loins, but the deep whine that he pushed from his throat sounded a lot like “Alpha. Alpha...” Hannibal growled like a vicious, reckless wolf against Will's skin, and the Omega knew Hannibal was torturing him as much as himself by delaying their inevitable mating. Foreplay, after all, was hardly for the savage, but rather for the gentle lovers. And yet, Hannibal seemed to want to slow down for him before his rut overtook all other senses, and to pleasure him as more than a mere Omega with his ass up in the air. After his desperate, wailing cry however, Hannibal too lost the last of his restraint. 

Will snarled with feral teeth when felt himself being dragged up to his feet, as Hannibal yanked him up from the mattress by his waist and a fistful of his hair and turned him over in his arms. Two steps forward, a pushing hand on his neck, and his cheek pressed hard against a wall of glass. 'YES,' his animal mind howled approval and he moaned a low whine all the way from his belly as he tilted his hips back at Hannibal, who pressed against his back and rumbled low in his ear. The Alpha's nose was in his neck, kissing and nipping at the reddening skin as one large hand spread over Will's belly and pressed, pulling him further back. “Fuck,” Will moaned, fogging the glass wall with his panting breaths as Hannibal's free hand dipped between his dripping cheeks and plugged in two impatient fingers.

That plunging touch of twisting digits inside his ass was so glorious, Will groaned with open lips against the glass and stained it with saliva. “Please. Please, Hannibal,” he heard himself begging as tears started to leak from his eyes when the Alpha stroked a fingertip against his swollen prostate. It was the first time he had used Hannibal's name during sex, which was a thought that shot through his heated brain like a fleeting snowflake. Hannibal, however, pressed himself even closer against Will's back and tilted his Omega's head with a demanding hand under his chin. His kiss was as invasive as the pumping fingers inside his body as he sucked demandingly on his tongue before pulling out his hand and positioned the large head of his cock against Will's slick, tight opening. 

The sounds that erupted when he pushed in were wild, unrecognizable as anything human and Will felt his eyes rolling and his teeth baring. Mind numbing relief washed through him as his insides were filled and stretched wide and deep, bringing pleasure that expanded to his thighs and up under his ribs. “Yessss.” Hannibal pushed the long length and thick girth of his Alpha cock into the tight Omega body in one powerful stroke that left them both weak in their knees and with heads thrown back in blinding pleasure. It was deep like this, so very deep and Hannibal wasted no time fucking into Will with long, hard strokes. 

Will had both of his hands flat against the glass, nails scratching and searching in vain for some grip. The side of his face was pressed against the glass wall, bumping back and forth on the bones of his cheek and chin with every thrust inside his body. Hannibal pounded his cock into him, grazing hard on his prostate with a quick pull back and a powerful thrust forward as he pressed two hands firmly against Will's lower abdomen, giving him the leverage to push inside him hard and cruel and mindblowingly right, and allowing him to feel himself moving under Will's taut skin. “Uhh, uhh, uhh,” was the continuous sound that erupted from Will's throat with every push against and inside his body.

It was as overpowering and primal as their previous fucking, but when Hannibal pulled Will's head sideways with a flat hand on the Omega's forehead and pulling fingers on his hair, the kiss they shared was one with sliding tongues instead of shredding, biting teeth. Will pushed back, hot in Hannibal's embrace as he pressed his forehead against the glass and writhed his ass back against the Alpha's body. He didn't stop until he felt Hannibal's hipbones against his ass cheeks and sobbed at the beauty of the fullness inside him. Hannibal curved him, tilted his hips with the pressing hands on his belly and ripping pleasure from his core that he could feel even behind the roof of his mouth. It was so deep, so good, he felt his face sliding lower on the glass in weakening bliss and lowered his head further to look between their bodies.

His thighs bulged with effort, quivering from the liquefying pleasure in his bones. His cock was untouched and angrily so, crying milky fluid on the head as it bounced against his belly every time Hannibal plunged back in to his body . He took mercy on himself and reached down to palm his erection while simultaneously pulling the skin of his swinging sack forth so he could see where he was being penetrated, and the sight made his cock pulse dangerously in his hand. The large, bulbous and veiny shaft stretched his leaking hole to a point where the slick rim colored a blushing shade of alarming maroon, as Hannibal's erection, angry pink and glossy with Will's lubrication, pushed into the Omega's body to the wide, thick root.

“More, please,” Will sobbed against his arm, feeling Hannibal's fingers running down his thighs and brushing the hand Will still had around his cock. He didn't give him more, however, as the pace remained hard, deep, maddeningly steady while Hannibal's lips searched to kiss his neck, ignoring the persistent buckling of Will's hips by stilling him with firm hands on his belly. The Omega inside Will growled openly through his teeth and threw his head back on Hannibal's shoulder, snapping at his neck, just one bite out of reach. “Fuck you,” he growled and Hannibal's Alpha nipped warningly at Will's lips with a wild growl and sharp fangs bared, digging blunt nails into the man's hips as he kept his steady pace on him. Hannibal didn't like vulgarity, Will recalled, and wasn't that just the paradox from bleeding hell. Will pushed himself back harder, restrained by Hannibal's strength over him, as the Alpha drove into his body with steady, slow thrusts that were all too civilized for Will's reeling hormones. 

With hands on the glass, Will let himself sag forwards against the transparent wall, his body going soft and pliant against the Alpha's, who growled his approval against his neck. Will was faking defeat, giving himself over willingly to Hannibal's wishes of torturously testing his patience, but the moment he felt the hands on his body loosening, he pushed back with all his might, using arms and legs and all his strength to throw himself away from the wall and stumble backwards with full force against the Alpha's body, who grunted and searched for balance as he grabbed Will tight around the waist and stepped back one, two, three steps before toppling over backwards and onto the mattress. Will toppled back on the hissing Alpha, who yanked at his hair to nip at his ear with punishing teeth, without ever separating their bodies. But Will nuzzled the sharp fangs beside his face, feeling victorious over his stronger mate as he pushed himself up with his hands back beside Hannibal's shoulders and his legs spread over Hannibal's knees. He moaned, openly, abandoned, as he pushed himself back down the Alpha's cock, harder and faster than Hannibal had been willing to give. 

Hannibal roared in anger and surprise, and sat up as he placed his hands firmly on Will's hips to steady his Omega and support his weight, thrusting up to meet Will every time he let himself fall down around the Alpha's cock. The bigger man spared him no mercy after his rebellious act, crashing their bodies together with an angry, bruising force that left them both hissing and growling and wildly desperate for release. Will wailed, pumping his hips hard and fast as he fucked himself on Hannibal's pulsating Alpha cock at his own desired pace, riding him with his back to Hannibal's front. Hannibal's hand roamed over Will's quivering thighs and belly as he let himself be fucked hard and wild by the smaller Omega. It was hot, Will thought. So fucking hot. He had never before found the time to notice anything other than the blinding heat inside his core, but now the thought simply crashed inside his mind. Will couldn't help imagine the picture they painted, and it made his balls draw tight to his body. 

Hannibal groaned, loud and wet against the skin of his Omega's shoulder as his hand found Will's cock again. Warm fingers closed around his throbbing shaft before Hannibal gripped his free arm over Will's chest and pulled him backwards. Pressed flush together, Hannibal held him tight, pumped his hard cock and bit into his shoulder, groaning openly and vulgarly at the taste of Will's blood. He fucked into him harder and faster than he ever had, and the Omega screamed, wailed, howled and sobbed until he had no voice left within him, and all he could feel was his prostate being pounded on over and over, so quickly it was almost like a continuous press inside his body. A fast, light touch moved over his cock, jerking him in the rhythm of his Alpha's thrusts inside his ass and Will could feel the bulge of Hannibal's knot pressing on the outside of the rim. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” the feeling pushed him right over the steep, steep edge.

He wanted to curse, to claw, to cry out for his Alpha, but all sound got stuck in his throat as his body tightened hard and mercilessly around Hannibal's cock, who in turn clenched his arms hard around Will and released inside of the Omega with a powerful, primal growl in his mate's ear. The pleasure was a knife to his gut, biting into everything it could touch as it fought its way up and down, from toenails to eyeballs. His semen jerked and shot over his chest, onto his throat and the seam of his jaw. Hannibal's release pulsed hot inside his ass, deep and lasting as his cock continued to twitch inside of him, and his fingernails pushed into the side of his knees, drawing blood from beneath Will's skin. They pulsed and pulsed until their bodies went slack. 

Ecstasy remained a burning glow inside him as Will hummed, stretched and relaxed against Hannibal, who seemed to have taken his pleasure and pulled out of his body. That was a new development, Will noticed after a long moment of nothing but golden bliss where their bodies piled together and their skin formed a cocoon of glorious warmth. Hannibal hadn't pushed his knot inside, trapping their bodies in a forced moment of togetherness. It was... it was strange, different. It was something his body had wanted and now missed, deep down inside the core of his Omega. Will wasn't sure what to think of it. He rolled off of Hannibal, an odd sense of freedom, and felt his lips twitching down at the emptiness inside. He moved to his side with his back towards Hannibal, who stretched himself, scratched at the hair on his belly and dug his shoulders deeper into the mattress to find comfort.

Hannibal sighed contently. “It doesn't create, Will. It only bares what is already inside,” he said, repeating words of their previous conversation, as if it hadn't been interrupted by a wild display of animalistic sex. Will didn't move, staring at the glass wall and the smudge of hand and face prints they had left behind. Hannibal's body rolled over, coming to spoon behind him as he ran a caressing hand down Will's arm. “The desire to be here with me was yours already, Will,” he spoke close to Will's ear, and the Omega grimaced at the goosebumps that rose on his skin, betraying how much the Alpha's nearness affected him. “We both know we have recognized each other as equals a long time before this.” Lips pressed against his bitten shoulder and Will closed his eyes, in search of a deep breath. “Is this your idea of afterglow conversation?” he said through stiff lips, tensing his back against the soft hair of Hannibal's chest. “Tell me I'm wrong,” the Alpha pressed, pushing his nose between Will's shoulder blades and settling against him. 

Will felt a nose drawing patterns on his skin and sighed angrily at the happy hum that rose from within his body. “None of this makes any sense,” he huffed, “this Alpha and Omega thing is just so... idiotic.” His words were murmured against the mattress, and Hannibal chuckled behind him, running fingers over Will's naked ribs before pressing another kiss to his neck. “Let us not...,” he started, but was silenced when Will turned his head up and pushed his shoulder back to face Hannibal with an angry scowl. “I'm in heat. My body wants me to breed when I cannot even bare children. How is that not pointless, primal idiocy?” he bit at the Alpha, who blinked with eyes soft with satisfaction, briefly considered him and pushed his nose to Will's ear with a smile. Animal affection. Endless animal affection. 

“Oh no, Will, that is not all a heat is for,” Hannibal said, purring into his hair. “It is a way to help create and maintain a bond between Alpha and Omega mates. Physically as well as mentally.” Will leaned in when Hannibal pressed their cheeks together, the comfort it brought stronger than himself. “Mentally?” he scoffed, tilting his head back to give Hannibal room to nuzzle at his glands. “Of course,” Hannibal said against his throat. “Sex is just one of the components. The time that comes after is equally substantial.” There was a hint of tongue against Will's skin, a threat of teeth, and it made his subconsciousness fully aware of what would happen, would Hannibal bite down.

“Like when you... when we... when you're stuck inside me?” Will stammered, feeling his cheeks flush as Hannibal pulled back to look at him. “Knotted, yes,” he said, as his hand reached for Will's and lazily played with his fingers. “Jesus,” Will cursed, feeling his blush deepening as it spread to his ears and down his neck. He lay his head back flat on the mattress, eyes on the ceiling. “We didn't... we didn't do that this time,” he said, carefully toneless as he kept his eyes off Hannibal, who kept stroking his fingers undisturbed. “I figured it would be more comfortable for you,” Hannibal responded casually, making no effort to meet Will's shy flicker of eyes. Instead, he kept looking at Will's fingers, bending them at the knuckles and stroking his nails.

They stayed like that for minutes, silently in a room that was still clouded by their blended scents as Will felt his slick trickling out of him, mixed together with Hannibal's seed. It felt dirty, lying in their sticky fluids, but he didn't move. He had almost closed his eyes before Hannibal spoke again, gently. “I will give you all the time you need to accept the situation, Will. I will answer all your questions and I will not stop you when you walk away. But you need to understand that there is no running from who we are. You will always come back to me. We belong together.”

Will's eyes popped open, shooting sideways where Hannibal was staring at him with intense, amber eyes. Will rolled to his side, facing Hannibal, and inhaled, smelling that scent that made his heart sing. “I've never trusted you,” he said, voice husk. Their eyes met in a long stare of ocean and earth. “And you never could,” Hannibal said. “Until now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is! The smutty part I promised you for this week! Sorry there are two short updates instead of one long one, I blame the rainy holiday! But I love you guys so much for your patience with me and your loyalty and awesomeness! It is insane how amazing you all are! I could not have dreamed such support and kindness! It really makes me so motivated to go until I'm old and gray! All my love!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Will?” Alana's voice sounded from the other side of the glass wall. “Hannibal? Can I have a word?” She sounded hesitant underneath the stern confidence she always tried to exude. Will's head shot up, pulling back from Hannibal with widened eyes and bright burning cheeks as he whipped his head to the side and looked right into a lovely shade of blue eyes from the other side of the wall, mere feet away. “I could come back,” she said a little hasty, pulling at the sleeves of her maroon suit. “Are you... connected, right now?” There was a tinge of pink to her cheeks but her tight lips didn't show anything that could be considered less than cold, hard professionalism. It was admirable, at the least.

They were dozing together, front to back, and when Will awoke he realized he had lost all sense of time. How many days, how many nights had passed, was completely lost in the rhythm of sex, sleep, sex and sleep. When his eyes fluttered open, body stirring under the sheets, he felt himself welcomed to the world by soft lips pressing against the bare skin of his neck. The kisses were gentle, barely there, so different from the brutality they contained when they were driven by the heat and the rut and both of them couldn't think about anything else than a beastly need to be close enough to taste blood.

This, this was different. This was not mere lust or a leftover exchange in the golden clouds of the afterglow. Those lips on his neck showed no hurry, no intention to wander or to spur him on, but spoke of nothing but a simple, honest wish for touch, taste, nearness. Hannibal wasn't shy about his affections, and he never had been. Will remembered those lingering touches of fingers on his shoulder, a caress on the back of his hand and a cupping palm on his cheek, those first months in his office. His Alpha had never made a murder pit out of his heart, even when he did out of everything else. 

For Will, feeling those lips on his neck without the fog in his mind was other territory. This was real. This was Will Graham, even if the animal within him still keened at the need to throw back his head and push into the caressing lips against his skin. What Hannibal showed him was whole-minded tenderness, sentiment, and Will took a deep breath to steady himself inside the warm arms that wrapped around him. He inhaled the blanketing scent of Alpha and Omega, Hannibal and Will, which was deeply embedded on their skin and in their sheets. He felt lips against his throat like the soothing water of the stream, and heard the song beneath his skin, the thousand fragile voices in the chapel made of bones. Everything about it, even without the clawing need in his loins, felt like it belonged.

His nose followed after the fiery musk and before he had turned his head up completely, his lips were sought out and captured by a soft mouth, surrounded by a chafing stubble. The kiss was nothing but lips as their mouths brushed and slid and found their way to fit seamlessly against each other. They burned each other's skin with sharp day-old beards and they clutched unwashed hairs between their fingers as they brushed and slid and pulled until no air existed between them. The moment was something that flooded Will, engulfed him completely, and he would not consider his behavior again, until much, much later, simmering shamefully in the darkness of his mind. But at this moment, something considerably more difficult to evade and avoid was rattling at the gate of their togetherness, and demanded their attention.

“Will?” Alana's voice sounded from the other side of the glass wall. “Hannibal? Can I have a word?” She sounded hesitant underneath the stern confidence she always tried to exude. Will's head shot up, pulling back from Hannibal with widened eyes and bright burning cheeks as he whipped his head to the side and looked right into a lovely shade of blue eyes from the other side of the wall, mere feet away. “I could come back,” she said a little hasty, pulling at the sleeves of her maroon suit. “Are you... connected, right now?” There was a tinge of pink to her cheeks but her tight lips didn't show anything that could be considered less than cold, hard professionalism. It was admirable, at the least. 

Will twisted away from Hannibal and reached for the sheets, suddenly very much aware of his nudity, the raw marks on his neck and shoulders, and the blood-filled lips that must be tinged red from their pressing kisses. He pulled the white, dirty sheet around his shoulders and folded the material around his body, hiding everything but face and feet as he sat up, threw Hannibal, naked and undisturbed, a quick and flustered stare and scampered to his feet. “No. no,” he stuttered, out of breath, stepping towards her behind the glass, only briefly meeting her eyes.   
“Alana, what a lovely surprise,” Will heard Hannibal greeting her jovially behind him, and he watched him rise from the mattress with so much grace it made Will's jaw tighten before he turned his burning eyes away. Hannibal did not seem to care much for modesty, and forwent the blanket he could have used for cover. He was naked, blemished with marks and bites and scratches on his skin, and he wore them like the most precious jewelery. It was a game, Will thought. A power play, of prisoner and guard, an Alpha who finally found his intended: 'I am vulnerable, yet you cannot harm me. You cannot touch me. You cannot have me. I no longer belong to you.'

Alana's eyes burned a hole through Hannibal's skull, carefully making sure her eyes would not wander anywhere else. Her lips still tight, her fingers twitching. She was uncomfortable, bordering on pissed. “We will get dressed, it will only take a minute,” Will said, eyeing Hannibal disapprovingly, if a little heated, and twirled his finger bidding Alana to turn, which she did. There was probably nothing here she hadn't already seen on her security cameras, but Will still had a scrap of pride in him and he was clinging on to it hard. If only he could stop the bubbling burn behind his balls that was already shimmering inside him.

He grabbed his prison suit and tossed the other to Hannibal when he didn't make a move to get himself decent. He caught it in one hand, ignoring Will's pointed stare and hoisted himself in the pale gray overalls without any underwear. Will quickly looked at the accommodating socks, shirt and underwear on the floor, but forfeited them with a roll of his eyes. Hannibal had been right when he said there was no point to getting fully dressed. The suit was too big, Hannibal's size, and half of his hands and feet disappeared under the fabric. It didn't help the situation, really, looking like a boy dressed in Daddy's suit. 

When they were all facing each other from other sides of the glass, Hannibal clasped his hands behind his back, taking his signature stance, and smiled dangerously at Alana. Her pupils dilated, but nothing else about her so much as moved. “We have about 15 minutes to spare,” Hannibal informed her and Will's brow shot up despite himself. “What?” he hissed between his teeth. “How do you know that?” He did not desire being left out on the biological part of a situation he was at least 50% part of. Hannibal's lips twitched, betraying the tiniest hint of a smirk before he made a show of closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose. Nostrils flared and Will felt heat rising from his neck to his ears. He clenched his insides and felt slick pooling around his hole. Hannibal could smell him, better than Will could smell himself. He was attuned to him, like Will was attuned to Hannibal's musk of winter fire.

“Right,” Alana said, her voice an octave higher, and Will snapped his eyes away from Hannibal's leering gaze and onto Alana's rapidly blinking one. “This situation requires some delicate decisions from us, Will,” she said, pointedly leaving Hannibal out of the conversation. Will inhaled, feeling himself step closer to the glass as he placed a hand against the cool, smooth material. His mind hadn't allowed him to think much further than where he was now. With Hannibal, in his cell, with nothing but each other. There was a world out there, outside these walls, and there was a life waiting for him. He wanted to think, think, think, but his mind steered away from any subject that was beyond these walls.

“Did you contact Molly?” he asked Alana, pulling at his bottom lip with his fingers. Behind him, Hannibal sniffed once and his scent of warmth became laced with something hot, like sitting too close to a fireplace. Alana nodded, carefully, an apologetic twitch of her lips. “She called us,” she said. “We told her you have Typhoid fever. Quarantined. No visitors allowed.” Will's eyes widened, trying to think about his poor, sweet, worried Molly. “What did she...?” he said, stuck on the sentence as he breathed the hot fire that Hannibal emanated into the room. “We told her not to come, but she wants daily updates. Dr. Hamming is making up something adequate, I believe,” Alana said, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, a gesture laced with nerves no doubt caused by the fire-breathing lion in the room. “I assumed you didn't want her to know, or see.....” - “No, no,” Will confirmed hastily with a wild shake of his head, gathering trembling breaths between his teeth. Their eyes were locked, and he looked at a kindness in her face he recognized from years before, when they were friends. It was warm, and open, and sad. It was pity, he realized now. It had always been pity.

“We will figure something out,” she said, promised, quiet and sweet, trustworthy with those big, blue eyes you could drown in. That very moment, he wanted to bare his teeth at her and growl, lash out against the glass wall, but all he did was was nod. He turned from the glass and noticed Hannibal's eyes on him, seeing into him as if his skull had been cracked open and laid bare. Their eyes met briefly, ocean and earth, and Will breathed, feeling his lungs open and his feet steady as the rage behind his chest settled in that instant. His shoulders sagged, his hands unclenched, he was calm. Alana turned to Hannibal, unaware of what transpired. “So,” she said, eyes fixed firmly on the Alpha as she crossed her arms over her chest. You... outdid yourself on the furniture,” she wrinkled her nose in disapproval as her eyes scanned over the room, currently in a state that would have made a hurricane proud. Hannibal tilted his head, and pursed his lips with unmistakable mirth.

“Both of us did,” he said, stretching his linked hands behind his back. “Did you see?” his eyes were challenging, probing for the tiniest hint of an expression that would betray if she had indeed, seen them, breaking that furniture. Alana's eyes widened before she quickly recovered and sighed in dismay as if the question was merely a distasteful one. Will eyed her carefully from beside Hannibal, his cheeks hot red and palms sweaty, but if there was anything to read on her, it was lost on him.

“Some of the staff is coming to replace what has been broken, and to clean up this mess,” Alana said, ignoring Hannibal and evasively watching the devastated room behind them. “How generous,” Hannibal said, hands still clasped, eyes still shining. “Safety regulations,” Alana replied coolly, her eyes never making it back to his. If she was trying to be professional about her distaste, or rather her apprehension, for the man that she had once called a lover, she failed.

Her eyes moved back to Will, who was starting to feel weak in his bones and hot in his loins. His distance from Hannibal was ever so slowly crossed with the occasional shuffle of his bare feet on the wooden floor, as his nose searched the air for more of his Alpha's scent. Alana watched him, undoubtedly noticing the helpless pull. “I wanted them to be here in twenty minutes and have Hannibal restrained, but...” she paused, shifting her gaze from one to the other, gears almost visibly spinning inside her head as she watched a heated, squirming Will gazing mindlessly at Hannibal, whose body was practically throbbing under his thin uniform. “We could go someplace else,” Hannibal suggested, pulling up a teasing eyebrow at her before following his nose into Will's curls. Alana huffed and crossed her arms, cheeks flushed hot pink. “You could go into your private shower. I'm sure you could both use one,” she said, and Will felt her looking at the dirty sheet on the floor. Crusted with slick and semen, sweat and blood.

“We can't be... connected, in my private shower,” Hannibal countered, leaving a dramatic pause in the sentence to repeat Alana's own awkward phrasing back to her. “It would hardly be comfortable for my Omega.” Hannibal ran a hot tongue over the skin behind his mate's ear as Alana's cheeks burst with color and Will had a sudden vision of Hannibal knotting him whole and deep against the cold tiles. One drop of slick fell on the back of his leg and Hannibal's nostrils widened. “It's fine, Alana, thank you,” Will hurried to say, pitying her for the position that was forced on her. In fact, the only one not to be pitied for forced positions, was Hannibal. Alana stepped closer to the glass, meeting Will's eyes and lowering her voice. “This only takes a few more days, Will. When your heat is over we will sort this whole thing out. Maybe there's a cure,” she said, soft, hopeful, kind. 

“The cure is death,” Hannibal deadpanned dryly beside him and Alana's head shot up, turning to him with a vicious glare. “I've done my research,” she said, pedantically. “There are pills that...” - “That control your hormones? Tamper your heats?” Hannibal interrupted her, smiling, mocking, but with a fiery, dangerous glint beneath the amber of his eyes. Will caught it, and felt his insides sizzle and crack with newfound heat. “Not when you have found your one, perfect mate,” the Alpha said, eyes shining like liquid fire, and Will felt his knees trembling under his weight and his already hardening cock twitching against his prison suit. Alana huffed through her nose, her bravery, even behind glass, astonishing. “You are not bonded,” she pointed out, fingers clenched and brow drawn tight when Hannibal pursed his lips in self-satisfaction as he stared those fire-breathing eyes straight into her skull. “We are a Per mutua nexis couple, Alana,” he said and cocked his head towards the undamaged rows of books on the wall. “I too, have done my research.”

Will's Omega ears picked up the grinding of Alana's teeth as she stared silently, cold and hard, at the haughty Alfa. “A permanent separation between us, heat or no, will be impossible,” Hannibal carried on when Alana stayed silent. “Will, will have to stay with me.” The Omega's eyes peeked up through the thickening mist of his rising heat. “What?” he said, dazed, but Hannibal only extended his hand to stroke his curls, and Will instantly calmed under the touch, nuzzling against the Alpha's wrist. “Or you will have to hand me to him,” Hannibal continued, tilting his head challengingly at Alana, whose eyes widened visibly at the mere idea of what Hannibal was suggesting. “It is far from proven that you two are a Per mutua nexis couple, Hannibal. Don't get ahead of yourself,” she hissed with sharp venom on her tongue before she turned back to Will, taking a deep, calming breath. 

“We will talk about this when you are no longer in heat, Will,” she said, still flustered from the argument, until she looked into those lost Omega eyes and softened her blue eyes. “Don't worry, Will. We will find a way to help you.” Will blinked, hardly seeing Alana through the blazing beauty that was his available Alpha mate beside him.“Yes. All right,” he said absentmindedly as he stepped so close his chest was pressed against Hannibal's arm. That arm found a way around his waist and Will ran his nose over Hannibal's neck before latching his mouth to the tender skin, tasting his mate like it was a vitality. Alana took a step back as blood rose to her cheeks, but the two stepped forward in tandem, Will folding himself around Hannibal's every move. 

“Alana,” Hannibal said, no color to his voice as he stroked Will's neck like one would a beloved pet. “I am in a most agreeable mood, in such delightful company.” His eyes rested on Will, who was nosing along his jawline with content little sighs, and his eyes shone with proud, pleased, possessiveness. “It is so agreeable, in fact, that the promise I have reserved for you could slip from my mind altogether.” Will could barely see anything through his smothering need, but he did hear Alana's hidden gasp, stuck in her throat. Both she and Hannibal were close to the glass, eyes locked almost painfully. “But if you force a separation between me and my Omega, and he suffers because of it, I'll upgrade that promise to new, glorious heights and I will slaughter ever single person that ever touched your life. Like Verger pigs.”

He spoke the words with bone-chilling honesty as Will licked his ear like a purring kitten and pushed one leg around Hannibal's hip to grind against him through his onesie. “Excessive,” Will commented offhandedly, as he started to reach for the zipper of Hannibal's jumpsuit. Graying chest hair came in sight, and he buried his nose against the newly revealed skin, rubbing the scent against his glands. He heard Hannibal's words as if in a dream, but what he said next penetrated deeper in his mind, and remained. “This is my mate, Alana. If you think you know devotion, think again. I won't just die for him. I'll mutilate, violate and burn everything and everyone that doesn't move to accommodate him.”  
Will felt a hot burn in his chest and pushed his hands inside the prison suit, wrapping his arms around Hannibal's naked waist. “Fuck me,” he said, finally pulling Hannibal in for a real kiss and sliding his tongue between the Alpha's lips to stroke against Hannibal's. He was so wet and so hard already, staining and straining his new jumpsuit as his legs moved to climb onto the Alpha's hips. Hannibal held him steady with firm hands on his lower back, but he too, was already too far gone to heed the woman in front of them. It was then that the loud sound of a buzzer rung through the cell, and Alana's head shot up and out of what seemed like a high, faraway place in thunderous clouds.

The staff members were there to replace the furniture, and things were getting out of hand, very quickly. “How about that shower?” she said, flushing red high on her cheeks. Hannibal shot an eye her way before he tightened his grip on Will's hips to lift him, and the Omega wrapped his legs around the Alpha's waist. “I'll take you,” Hannibal rumbled low against his mate's ear as he carried him off to the back of the room, while Will was tugging at his earlobe with his teeth and grinding his hips against Hannibal's belly.

“Yes, yes, take me,” he moaned, beyond all shame as Hannibal walked backwards into the oak door that was positioned in the wall behind the bed, to push it open. That door was one that Will had seen before but never considered, and now he could see for himself that it revealed a bathroom with creme tiles, a sink and a rather spacious, walk-in shower made entirely from glass walls. It wasn't a bathroom to Hannibal's standard, but for a prison shower, it was absolutely outrageous. “This... How?” Will panted through the heat, managing those two surprised words with widened eyes at Hannibal, who still carried him around his waist.

“With good behavior come all kinds of privileges, Will,” the Alpha bared his teeth and Will felt those words all over his skin like a thousand hot needles sunk into him at once, pain until unbearable pleasure. If Will had not been delirious like a dog in heat, he would have remembered just how Hannibal had earned those privileges from his ward. The Verger child, securing a great inheritance that reeked of foul blood and betrayal, and it was Hannibal that had supplied that one necessity to make it so. And that man was watching him with hooded eyes of gold and blood, hot and heavy and traveling down his face until he lurched forward to capture Will's lips between blunt teeth. 

Will moaned quite obscenely around a hot, soft tongue that licked into his mouth as Hannibal pressed their bodies into the nearest, tiled wall. He threw his head back against the hard stone when Hannibal scraped his teeth lower over his neck a released a needy growl that peaked the ears of Will's Omega, pressing fangs right over the sensitive glands of his throat. Will felt his body quivering with want and need and terrible weakness, safely held by Hannibal's strong arms and pressed against his strong, strong body as the Omega inside him cried and howled and begged to be bitten. Claimed. Bonded. But Will, he was there too, and his voice was regaining strength with every passing minute since the beginning of his heat, pushing through from the back of his head. No. No. Not that.

And Hannibal heard him too, even when his hands shook from the effort to move from the Omega's exposed, undamaged skin. The Alpha could easily overpower and claim him without as much as a real struggle and the thought scared Will as much as it added to his arousal, coiling like a ball of furious fire behind his pelvis. Hannibal was strong like a savage predator that could only safely be beheld behind a wall of glass, and that Alpha licked longingly around the shell of his ear. “Please, Hannibal, please,” Will pleaded, his throat tight and his eyes wet as Hannibal's hand started ripping his clothes, forced to let Will's feet back to the floor to undo the fabric over his hips. “I told you, clothes are no good at all during heats,” he said through the low growl that steadily rose from his chest as he squatted down to press kisses onto Will's naked belly. “No good,” Will agreed, pulling at Hannibal's own prison attire. In the background, male voices could be heard through the walls. They were cleaning up their mess, while they were here making more. “Fuck,” Will sighed when Hannibal spun him to pull the suit off his feet before sitting up on his knees and pushing his tongue in between Will's cheeks, finding his tight, wet heat. “Oh Fuck,” Will pushed back against that probing tongue with true abandon, arching his spine dangerously deep into the fiery licks against his opening while his face rested against cold tiles. “Oh God, please, please. Alpha,” he begged, knowing already what it did to his mate when he begged him so prettily and he felt the uncontrolled heat coming off of Hannibal behind him as he groaned deep against Will's hole.

Will felt the vibration of his Alpha's deep voice buzzing against him as the hot tongue lapped at the slick around his opening. It was maddening, torturously hot and wet, and Will's knees quivered and buckled as he pushed himself firmer against Hannibal's face. The wet, devouring noises and rough moans that rose between them were obscene, and Will cursed loudly against the tiles when Hannibal pushed one, long finger into his ass, and rubbed teasingly against his needy prostate. “Fuck, shit, THERE,” the Omega cried out his approval ecstatically loud, and the voices on the other side of the thin wall silenced at once. Those men cleaning up their mating mess, those men could hear them through the wall. They could hear the grunts and the moans and the cries and wet licks of an Alpha tongue against dripping slick, but Will didn't notice as he pushed back wholeheartedly against Hannibal's face and hand, openly welcoming the fingers on his prostate with a high-pitched whine.

Slick flowed freely and the scent of sex, musk and autumn rose in the air around them as the sticky fluid stained Hannibal's mouth, chin and fingers as he hummed blissfully against Will's entrance with closed eyes and his tongue pushing in beside his stroking finger. No one had ever done this to Will before, and the idea had always struck him as odd, but that was no longer a word he would use as he clawed at the creme tiles like a lost, frightened animal and felt a heavy tension building inside his balls. Coming like this, it wouldn't be enough. He knew he needed to be bred, filled, belly bloated with his Alpha's cum, but for now there was room inside his head only for this, this, this, and it felt so, so good. Oh yes. “Oh fuck yes.” Hannibal worked in another finger, as he licked around Will's tight rim. He felt it in his cock, his ass and his abdomen as those pinpricks of pleasure and heat wound tight around his upper thighs like ropes of silk, tightening bliss.

A hand slid between his legs and long fingers brushed his balls before wrapping around his cock and pumping his erection with a loose grip that left Will staggering on his legs. He pressed his face and one shoulder to the cold tiles, missing any kind of real leverage, except Hannibal's face between his cheeks. “Ohhhhh,” Will whined, more and more like the Omega that was already howling inside his head. Will could smell Hannibal's arousal thick in the air as it danced with his own, and shuddered hard around the fingers and tongue inside his tight body. Hannibal growled low in his throat, stroking the sound inside Will, who jerked back against the grip on his cock. The tightening pleasure was everywhere, clawing and gripping and building to an unbearable pressure in his belly. “Hannibal, please, please make me come,” he sobbed shamelessly, wild and desperate as he rocked his hips in search for more and hard. Outside the wall, there was the dragging of furniture and the tinkering of construction, but not a voice could be heard. 

Hannibal snarled at his words and squeezed Will's cock tight in his palm as his fingers plunged deeper into Omega's opening. Will knew Hannibal could have dragged this out for days, his pure delight and enjoyment in this position evident on his face and against the strained fabric of his jumpsuit, but Will couldn't wait. The steady rhythm of teasing fingers and licks was only fogging his mind harder and hotter gradually turning him into a desperate, clawing animal, in search for relief. Hannibal continued to rub his prostate in teasing circles until Will swayed on his legs, balancing on a very high, steep edge between heaven and pain. He wanted it so, so bad. And then, the fingers were gone, the tongue slipped out, the hand released him. Hannibal rose and stepped back from Will, who huddled against the wall like a weak, desperate pile of Omega man and howled pitifully as his bare hips rocked against nothing.

“No, no, no, no, noooo,” Will wailed dramatically, open lips pressed against the cold tiles and eyes tightly pressed shut. Hannibal smiled as he stepped out of his own clothes, whipped his mouth with the sleeve and grabbed a large towel as he walked into the shower. “Come with me,” he said, turning on the water and checking the temperature with his hand. Will followed instantly, wobbling on unsteady legs as he reached for his naked Alpha, nose against throat. “My Omega,” Hannibal sighed contently into his hair and hummed his satisfaction when Will reached eagerly between their bodies for the Alpha's cock, hard and ready against his belly. He stroked over the hard flesh as he kissed alongside Hannibal's jaw, who in turn soothed him with stroking hands on his arms and back, rumbling approval in Will's ear that made the Omega glow warmly under his skin. Steam was rising all around them as Hannibal checked the temperature of the running water before grabbing his mate and pushing him under the stream with his back against the glass wall. The water was hot, the glass was cold and Will was writhing against his mate. “Yes,” Will sighed, reaching out with grabbing hands to pull Hannibal towards him. “Fuck me.” 

Will felt big hands lifting his hips again and wrapped his legs back around Hannibal's hips in the same instant. His head was already back against the wall as his hips pressed down in search for Hannibal. No more stalling, there was only so much his starving animal brain could take. When Hannibal pressed the head of his cock against him without pressing in, Will growled from between his lips as he shot a furious look to the Alpha, who smiled challengingly at his mate. Will snapped at Hannibal's throat with teeth and squeezed his hips punishingly tight around the Alpha's waist. “Fuck me,” he yelled demandingly. “Fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME!” On the other side of the wall, something heavy dropped and two people cursed, but the noise was drowned out by Will's cry when Hannibal grabbed his hips and slammed home in one brutal stroke.

Will's head slammed against the glass as his back arched as far as his spine would allow itself to bend and Hannibal fucked unforgivingly into his tight, wet opening. The pace was merciless as he slammed himself all the way into his Omega before drawing back with a wet drag against Will's insides, and forcing Will's hips back down again. His hands were on the back of Will's thighs, carrying his weight as he pressed him into the steamed up glass, leaving prints everywhere Will's naked body touched. “Yes, yes, yes,” Will moaned wildly as he met his mate with every thrust, feeling his neglected release building back up at whirlwind speed. 

“They're listening,” Hannibal growled into his ear as he pushed his nose into Will's wet curls. They were both soaking wet, with hot water pounding on their heated skin as they moved hard and frantically against each other. Will knew, somewhere in his sex-fried brain, that he was referring to the working staff in the cell outside the bathroom. The sounds of furniture being rearranged and rebuilt had slowed to almost nothing, but there were indeed still half a dozen men present in that room. “Yes,” he hissed against his Alpha as he pushed his hips forward to claim every thrust inside. His prostate was abused, his hole was swollen red and his cock was crying from neglect. He wanted more, more, more.

“Do you want me to stop?” Hannibal asked huskily, teasing as he dragged his tongue across Will's ear shell “Don't you fucking dare,” Will moaned, wrapping two strong arms around Hannibal's shoulders as he held on tighter and bounced harder against the glass, on the Alpha's pulsing cock. “They can hear what I'm doing to you,” Hannibal hissed, sucking a bruise under his earlobe. The heated words made Will's balls draw tight and his eyes roll back as Hannibal's cock pressed heavy on his prostate and dragged deliciously in and out of his body. “Shit,” Will cursed, moaning when Hannibal held him up with one hand only to graze Will's pink, peaked nipples with this thumb.

“They can hear how much you love being fucked by me,” Hannibal grunted, pumping into him harder as he reached down Will's belly. “Fuck, yes, yes,” Will cried harder, uncaring who heard as he sobbed his pleasure against his Alpha's neck. “They can hear how much you love to be fucked by your Alpha,” Hannibal growled, lost in Will's pleasure as one hand tightened on the Omega's hips and pounded into his willing body, hard and fast and with full abandon. “They can hear you belong to me,” Hannibal hissed through gritted teeth and Will howled when Hannibal's free hand wrapped around his cock and squeezed him tight. “Fuck. Alpha.”

Hannibal's tongue flicked behind his earlobe. “They will jerk off to the noises you are making when they get home,” he croaked against Will as the hot water streamed across his face, strained with effort and the painful pleasure that was theirs. “Hannibal,” Will whined, clawing at his Alpha's back as Hannibal's hand pumped his cock as he pushed the Omega hard and whole over his large, throbbing cock. “And I'm going to kill every single one of them for it,” Hannibal snarled, baring teeth as he bit into Will's shoulder and shuddered violently inside as his hand worked fast over Will's angry red cock. “Fuck, fuck fuck,” Will screamed, hearing himself echoing back against the walls as his body clamped down hard and his thighs shuddered with unforgivable pleasure. He felt himself shooting sticky, hot cum between their bodies as the Omega in him howled its victory when he felt Hannibal releasing himself deep inside his belly. It was an endless stream of hot wetness that filled him gloriously as he spasmed around Hannibal's swelling cock, knot pushed past the rim and growing inside as the Alpha's hips stuttered forward inside his body. 

His powerful orgasm took the wear out of his bones and replaced it with weightless pleasure that made him feel like he was floating on a sizzling, electric cloud. Hannibal had stopped moving his hips as he buried his face against Will's bitten shoulder. He hadn't bitten him where it counted even when Will had felt the strongest possible desire in Hannibal to do it, and Will felt that knowledge taking place inside his mind. Even when both their animals had wanted that bite, Hannibal had controlled himself. 

The knot was deeply embedded past his ring of muscles and he squeezed around it, making Hannibal groan and shudder against his shoulder. “We're stuck, like this,” Will said, not yet able to sound displeased at the odd position they were currently in. “Cozy, wouldn't you say?” Hannibal said against his skin, and Will could feel his bare teeth in a smile against his shoulder. Before he could consider their options, however, Hannibal had pulled a strong arm around him and pulled the awaiting towel off the rack to wrap it firmly around Will before he carried him, connected and bare, to the door. 

Will felt Hannibal shuddering with every footstep but he didn't slow his pace as he opened the door and walked into his prison cell, that was once again pleasantly unoccupied. The smell of sweaty men was very much present, but everything broken had been restored. The bed was back in place, with a twin placed right by its side. The table, the chair, and another chair. It was replaced, repaired and there was now room for two. Will couldn't help but feel a pinch of gratitude towards Alana when he eyed the extra bed that Hannibal laid himself on, with the Omega curled around his torso and fresh sheets over their naked skin. Face to face, knees beside Hannibal's hips. There was a tired kiss on his lips that he returned. “Are you really going to kill them?” Will asked, yawning as he pushed his nose under Hannibal's chin. “If I ever get the opportunity,” Hannibal promised, all softness and pink skin.

“That sounds dangerous, coming from you,” Will said, closing his eyes as his limbs went slack on the clean, new mattress. Hannibal sighed in his hair. “I meant every word I said to Alana,” he spoke softly, wrapping his arms around Will's ribs to pull him closer in their embrace. “I know,” Will replied, slowly falling into slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as fast as I would have liked to update, but I promise you I did my best!! ;-) Thank you guys so so much for reading and supporting and commenting, it means so much to me, really, I couldn't tell you! I reread them sometimes when times are tough! So much love from me and I hope you enjoy this next chapter! <3 <3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can I see them?” Chilton suddenly peaked up as he rubbed his palms together. Alana frowned.  
> “You want to talk to them?” she asked. “I'm afraid I can't...” But Chilton leaped off his chair, holding up his hands. “No, no, just a peak into their behavior on the monitor.” Alana looked at the boyish smirk and pulled her lips tight in distaste. “I don't think...,” she started before Chilton placed both his hands on her desk and leaned forward. His teeth shone from behind his lips as he leered at her. “There are a lot of people interested in this story, Alana. If I'm telling it, you know I will be very discreet about what's happening here, and very generous towards you and the facility.”

It only took a short hour for the knot to loosen inside Will, allowing them to separate. Then, it took an afternoon for Will to actually roll off his Alpha's chest and onto the adjoined, empty bed beside them. Two beds, they had now. A comfortable surprise, Will thought as he stretched out on the fresh sheets, cool against his bare skin. But he also felt something else entirely; this arrangement seemed... permanent. It was a change that made it feel real, like buying a litter box when adopting a kitten. It was like an unspoken agreement that he was now part of some sort of living arrangement. It made his chest feel tight and his face feel hot as he watched the windowless walls around him from his place on the bed. Those walls seemed thick, too thick to breathe easily and he felt like they were closing in, trapping him and squeezing the air from his lungs.

But before the wave of panic could crash behind his ribs and swallow him, a strong arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him back against the naked skin of a bare chest. “The two beds are required,” Hannibal's groggy voice croaked in his ear and Will's eyes shot back towards the nose that pressed against his cheek. “Two people, two beds. Due to health regulations.” Will breathed, steady and calm against his Alpha as he felt the tight fist of his fear vanishing in the cocoon of warmth that shimmered around them. “Was I thinking out loud?” he asked weakly against the mattress, remaining slightly shaken as Hannibal inhaled against the curls at his temple. “You always are,” he rumbled. “Now more than ever.”

Soup and bread were brought in by an unfamiliar staff member, a middle aged lady with frizzy hair, a shade too red for her ashy skin. She refused to make eye contact, even when she was politely thanked by the two men dressed only in sheets. They sat at the table, each in their own, new chair and Will ate after Hannibal insisted, even if his stomach twisted in hesitation at the sight and smell of food. “It is quite normal to lose one's appetite during a heat. Your body wants to keep itself light and clean to ensure a successful pregnancy,” Hannibal said airily, spooning his bland tomato soup into his mouth with eyes like bloody diamonds. “Thanks for that,” Will deadpanned as he narrowed his eyes at Hannibal from across the table, who smiled friendly around his spoon. 

Will noticed his mind seemed cleared somehow, calmer, steadier, since their last time together in the shower. His dreams had been less frantic, more clouded around the blur of naked skin he saw behind his eyes. Instead, there was a newfound clarity, more room to drift to practicalities, and of course, uncertainties. Molly was there, in his mind, more prominent than before. “I would ask you what is on your mind...,” Hannibal broke through the glass film on the staring Omega's eyes. “But I wouldn't want to give you the feeling that we're back in therapy.” His tone was gentle, a touch of humor present in his warm voice, but his eyes so probed violently curious that Will quickly blinked the vision of his wife from his mind, as if Hannibal could look into his eyes and see her too. It always felt like he could.

“My heat is... diminishing,” Will said into the spoonful of soup he quickly lifted to his lips and Hannibal hummed from across the table. “It gradually reduces, naturally,” he said, waving a hand as if to usher away such obvious thoughts while his eyes crept over Will, who quickly hunched back over his meal and took a bite out of his chicken sandwich. His legs twitched under the table, bouncing on one toe in a nervous habit as Hannibal leaned forward across the tabletop.

“How does that make you feel?” Hannibal asked, coaxing a curling of the Omega's lips as he briefly met Hannibal's eyes over the table. “Now I am back in therapy,” he said, shaking his head once before peeling the crusts off his bread with restless fingers. Hannibal's eyes were on him still, waiting. Will could see them on the inside of his skull before his eyes could even meet them across the room. “It makes me feel like I am having sex with an inmate while my family is home waiting for me.” Their eyes locked, but Hannibal seemed unfazed. He took a patient spoonful into his mouth and swallowed before he smiled. Kindly, but without his eyes. “Those are facts, not feelings,” he said analytically, “But I would guess the word you are looking for is guilt.”

Will felt a trickle of annoyance seeping down his spine and tightened his lips at the smug Alpha across the table. “The word I'm looking for is shock. Outrage. Exploited, by my own nature,” he bit across the table, slurping his soup noisily from his spoon to emphasize his anger. Hannibal remained perfectly upright in his seat as he placed his plastic spoon before him on the table and folded his hands in his lap. “Maybe the word is satisfied,” he said in a voice Will recognized as 'Dr. Lecter' who raised a single, challenging eyebrow on his stoic face. Will coughed against the soup as it almost went down the wrong pipe and pressed a hand to his mouth, watching Hannibal with outrage as he felt heat rising from his neck to his forehead.

Hannibal interrupted him before he could find his breath to foul-mouth him. “Or maybe the word is simply complete,” his shoulders dropped an inch, and golden predator eyes grew a soft amber. “I can only feel my end of the string that pulls between us, Will, but it certainly feels like that to me.” Hannibal's eyes were large and wide in the soft, overhead light, or maybe it was just an illusion that filled him like the soft, golden tingle that spread from his spine and his body like an embrace. Will bit his lip hard in anger that he longed to keep as Hannibal's voice stroked the air like a Summer breeze. “Ever since you presented, the endless mazes in my mind have found a destination. Everything that was dead and dry is nurtured and fertilized back to life. Everything that was raw and bare, is now gloriously restored.” 

Will pressed nails into his palms to keep his hands from trembling as Hannibal's face opened like a fresh flower touched by the spring sun. His eyes were gold, deep, warm, wet, human. His lips were parted, pink, curving up into a dazing, dreamlike smile that was directed at the Omega across from him. “When we met, your presence was a bandage to my wounds, but now it is the new, rosy flesh on my bare bones,” Hannibal's voice was smooth like silk, husk like smoke and steady as he rolled his tongue around every vowel. Will's throat felt tight and there was a pressure behind his eyes that he couldn't blink away as their gaze blended over into one of earth and ocean. They both swallowed, mouths dry.

When Hannibal smiled again, softness turned sharp. “We differ, more than I once cared to admit, but I understand your mind like only I ever could.” Hannibal leaned closer in his seat, his eyes an oasis of amber and deceitful like the ocean. There was a calm shimmer to the surface, but Will knew what lived beneath as he held on to the table before him and wet his lips with a sliver of pink tongue. Hannibal's eyes caught the movement and his lips twitched. “There will be guilt on your conscience for the rubble you will leave behind when you choose me. Maybe even for knowing deep down that this is what you've always wanted, from the moment our eyes met.” 

Hannibal's eyes were grabbing him tight and deep and Will took a shaky breath, blinked and finally managed to pull away from the gripping, pulsing gaze that pumped black, forbidden pleasure into his veins. He ground his teeth close together and smiled without any humor. “Sex with you?” he asked, trying for mockery but achieving little more than sounding fearful. Hannibal's fingers pressed into the table top with an urgency. “A life with me. Alpha and Omega. Bonded,” he said, pressing his teeth close enough to hiss. The soft paradise that had shimmered in his eyes was replaced by a destructive storm of Hell fire.

The Omega pushed out a noise that resembled a whimper and threw his head back in desperation, a sparkle of tears in the corner of his eyes. “I don't even know what that entails,” he breathed, rubbing hands over his temples as he closed his eyes. There was nothing he could grip, nothing to control. Fear flared hot inside his body as he whimpered again, loud and clear. “I presented Omega, but I know nothing about what it means to be one,” he said, a pitiful whine present in his voice as he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He didn't want to think about Hannibal's words, or how he felt about them. He didn't want to feel anymore. He didn't want to think anymore either. Not about that click inside his mind, every time their eyes met, or that feeling of safe completion that threaded like a spiderweb inside the cavity of his chest, whenever their skins touched. It was strength, protection, it was happiness. And it was completely and utterly beyond his control. Beyond rationality and beyond his wishes.

“You've talked about us with Alana,” Will wheezed out, remembering some words spoken between glass, something about him staying here, or about Hannibal leaving prison. It was far and vague but it seemed important. His mind had latched on to the moment, even when he had already been so far gone. “What do you remember?” Hannibal asked, tilting his head, his folded hands on the table and wrung together. The Omega stared at the slide of the skin of Hannibal's hands. He remembered one thing about that conversation, very clearly, but felt reluctant to share. “Will?” Hannibal pressed, watching his mate's Adam's apple bob and his cheeks stain a deep pink.

“I... I remember how your lips moved when you talked. I remember that,” Will mumbled as he looked back to his own hands in his lap. There was no option to ignore the pressing Alpha when he wished to, he knew. Everything about him refused to refuse him. Hannibal was smiling when he spoke next, Will heard it in the way the words formed against his lips, and how his voice exuded his pleasure. “Do you find it difficult to lie to me?” the Alpha asked, and Will's lips pulled into a stretched smile beyond his own doing. “I think I always have,” he confessed, remembering the time he called him up to warn him about Jack as he met tiger eyes and felt his insides drawing tighter, hotter, wetter when they gazed up at each other. No, not now.

“There is a lot for you to learn,” Hannibal said, patiently, ignoring Will's confession. “I will answer whatever questions you have, when your heat has tempered enough for us to have that conversation.” His voice was kinder, milder this time and Will wrapped his arms around his chest, shaking his head in desperation. “I need to understand this,” he urged, leaning forward over the table. “I need to know what my life will be like when this is over,” he pushed out, voice breaking under the strain. “I need to know what choices will still be mine to make.” There was a choked attempt to breathe as he felt tears wetting his eyes. He brought up his hands to shield his face when tears started to spill onto his cheeks. “I need to know what to tell my wife.”

There was a scratch of metal against wood and Will knew Hannibal was walking towards him, even when he didn't make a single sound. Tears streamed down the Omega's face, still hidden behind his hands. His shoulders shook out of anger, grief, guilt when he thought of his wonderful family, about the burning in his loins and the maddening, endless slick that was already wetting his seat, and that moment he and Hannibal had shared that kiss out of his heat. “Come, Will,” Hannibal said, not as a command but a request. Gentle hands lifted him by his shoulder, moving him to stand as strong arms wrapped around his back. Will looked at him, wiping at his ocean eyes with the sleeves of his jumpsuit, and sagged into the touch because he was weak and tired and he wanted nothing more than that touch that made him safe and home and whole. The embrace he was pulled into was like a heater for a freezing man. It was life, soothing his troubled mind instantly and wrongfully so.

“You're angry with me,” Hannibal said into his neck as he rubbed his hands gently up and down Will's back. Will sighed against his ear, resting his head on a broad shoulder. “You're very presumptuous about the outcome of our Alpha and Omega... whatever this is,” he mumbled into the skin of a warm neck that smelled like fire and snow. “I am also right,” Hannibal said, tightening fingers in Will's curls just as the Omega pulled back, pressing his lips together as their faces drew in closer. “You need to respect that I find this whole situation impossible. I have a wife and a stepson and a life away from you.” Hannibal's lips parted close to his and Will blinked away fresh tears that threatened to overflow. “I chose that, years ago. That was my choice,” his voice sounded fragile. It had been the right thing to do, even if it hurt more than anything ever had. He had chosen a normal life. A life where he would bury his urges and be a respectable citizen. Plain. Polite. His nose hovered mere inches away from Hannibal's who ran his eyes over the Omega's lips. “The only thing I respect is your happiness, Will. That lies here, with me,” Hannibal said, leaning in closer to nip at his lips.

Will flinched at his words and pulled back from the touch as he pushed his hands against the broad chest against him. He lashed out with arms that were captured in Hannibal's strong grip by the wrist, keeping them close as Will struggled against the hold. “You.. Fuck you,” he hissed between his teeth and Hannibal blinked, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, you are angry,” he said, both surprised and amused as they stood chest to chest, Will huffing fire against the taller Alpha. And even now Will knew, not without contempt, that even if Hannibal would let him, he would not step away.

“Yes, I am,” he spat as Hannibal leaned in close to nudge Will's nose with his own. They stared at each other and Will eyed the row of sharp, hungry teeth in Hannibal's mouth, feeling the need inside him rising despite himself. The hands released his arms and slid lower to cup his ass through his prison overalls. “Let's see how angry you are,” Hannibal said, but before he could finish the daring smile he wished to plaster in his face, Will rose to the challenge and closed the distance between them with a bruising, punishing kiss.

**

“Good evening Frederick, please come in,” Alana offered politely, opening the door to her office at the knock at exactly two minutes to two. The sharply dressed man, slacks, shirt, tie and shiny black dress shoes, nodded in greeting and walked past her with his wool coat slung over his arm. From up close, Alana could clearly see the scars of the bullet hole in his cheek, but from a short distance, the prosthetic on his face was an excellent one. “Thank you for seeing me on such shot notice, Dr. Bloom,” Dr. Chilton said formally, but the excitement in his voice was undisguised.

Alana knew that when she had gotten the call and the self-invite, that Chilton had gotten a whiff of Will Graham's presence alongside Frederick's favorite inmate, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Since he had lost his place behind the desk that was now Alana's, Chilton had become notorious for the many written works on the life and behavior of the infamous serial killer, cannibal and Alpha, who now had found his Omega in Will. Alana knew he smelled gold. “So...,” Frederick said, dumping himself on a chair and crossing his legs. “Can you believe it? Mr. Graham is Hannibal's Omega. Well, I am shocked,” Chilton gasped, clutching his chest and Alana pressed her lips into a line as she took her place behind her desk and folded her hands on the desktop. “We were all surprised,” she said, her smile faint and her eyes stern.

“I assume they are still in each other's company, right now?” Frederick probed without trying to hide his scavenger-esque curiosity and Alana clenched her teeth behind her lips. She had never liked Frederick but since she had taken over his position as head of the hospital, his nosy, interfering and downright rude characteristics were starting to wear on her even more. “Yes. We expect Will's heat to last at least two more days,” she said stoically, and Chilton pressed his hands together as he rocked himself on the edge of his seat. “My, oh my. Quite scandalous, really. Who would have thought that Hannibal would enjoy his time in prison this much,” he said, his smirk positively malicious and Alana pursed her lips tight, shooting him a blank stare that he knew to take as it was meant. “I apologize,” he quickly spoke with a wave of his fluttering hands, even though the smirk did not disappear. “I'm just so intrigued by this development.”

“It is a very rare occurrence,” Alana replied dryly, shuffling some papers on her desk and avoiding the absolute pleasure that danced on Frederick face. “And poor Will,” he said, a giddy chuckle under his breath. “Well, yes,” Alana said, trying to numb down the nervous twitching in her hands. Chilton clucked his tongue. “What is he to do when his heat is over? Will he stay here?” he asked, the constant shuffling of his shoes on the hardwood floor betraying his eagerness for information. “We haven't had that discussion yet,” Alana shook her head, waving him off. “Will has an appointment with the head of our medical department tomorrow.”

“Hammings, yes, yes,” Chilton said, rubbing his chin with two fingers to emphasize his thinking process. “Can he be separated from Hannibal for such a period of time?” The worried tone in his voice was a display of laughably poor acting. “We'll see,” Alana said with a painful hint of an attempted smile. She was raised to be polite, but some people made it nearly impossible. She straightened the collar of her blouse and sighed. “I will discuss the options with him once he is no longer in heat,” she said. Chilton smiled and opened his mouth to reply, before his face suddenly fell in uncertainty. A hint of white pulled up around his nose.

“There is no...” he started, before he cleared his throat and tried again. “There is no possibility of Hannibal's release, is there?” he said, his voice a little tighter, a little higher, than before. Alana, too, felt the blood draining from her face at the mere mention of such a scenario. “No. No, that is out of the question,” she said assuringly, if only for herself. She was still trying to figure out the legal aspect of this situation, but under no circumstances would she allow Hannibal back onto the streets. “What if Will takes this to court and...,” Chilton continued, but Alana didn't let him finish his thought, waving her hand. “It won't get that far. We will provide him with something suitable,” she said, confident and definitively, at which both sank back into their chairs. They agreed on one thing, at least: no matter what happened, Hannibal had to stay behind his wall of glass. 

“Can I see them?” Chilton suddenly peaked up as he rubbed his palms together. Alana frowned.  
“You want to talk to them?” she asked. “I'm afraid I can't...” But Chilton leaped off his chair, holding up his hands. “No, no, just a peak into their behavior on the monitor.” Alana looked at the boyish smirk and pulled her lips tight in distaste. “I don't think...,” she started before Chilton placed both his hands on her desk and leaned forward. His teeth shone from behind his lips as he leered at her. “There are a lot of people interested in this story, Alana. If I'm telling it, you know I will be very discreet about what's happening here, and very generous towards you and the facility.”

Alana breathed deep to calm the boiling insults she had ready behind her teeth, but she knew he was right. Whatever Chilton would write about this, would be read by many. As distasteful as he was, he had never written a word against the prison and herself in all his years of writing and reporting. He wasn't Freddy Lounds, who was undoubtedly already snapping pictures outside the building. He was, in his own, twisted way, an ally of the hospital. It was why she allowed him so many privileges, even when she despised the whole ordeal. “Follow me to the control room.”

The control room was a small, dark booth with rows and rows of monitors on the wall. All showed sharp, clear images of inmates locked in rows of cells. Some of them were pacing, some were sleeping, others just stared straight into the camera without blinking. Then there were the ones doing push ups, smearing their feces on the glass wall or simply masturbating. Alana didn't like to come here. “Hello Dennis,” she said to the blond, beefy security man, sitting in the only chair in the stuffy, dark room. “Dr. Bloom,” Dennis nodded, politely taking his black cap off his head. Alana found him a little simple, if not kind and a hard worker. To some too blond, overly tanned, fake-breasted girls, she imagined he would be quite the catch.

Chilton followed in behind her, feasting his eyes on the images that flashed on the walls. He was searching hungrily for the proper screen, but Alana knew exactly where to find it. Top left on the wall to her right. The monitor showed nothing but black and Alana felt a nervous twitch around her eye.  
“Why is the monitor in Dr. Lecter's cell turned off?” she asked tight-lipped, and watched Dennis shuffling in his seat as he looked at her with an apologetic frown. “If I watch them, it is hard to concentrate on the others,” he said, twisting his body back and forth on the rotating chair, looking a little sheepish. Alana felt her cheeks burning hot as she turned back at Frederick, who looked like he was eyeing an enormous chocolate cake as he walked up to the mysterious black screen. “Well, I mean,” Dennis sought to correct himself when he was interrupted.

“Cameras are never allowed off, Dennis. You know this,” Chilton said with an utmost moralizing tone. “Especially Dr. Lecter's room. He is the most dangerous inmate you have here.” He ticked an impatient finger against the glass. “Turn it on.” Dennis looked back at Alana, who blinked rapidly and folded her arms over her chest. She hated that disgusting little man, but unfortunately he knew the prison rules almost better that she did, and he was, of course, absolutely right. “Turn it on,” she said, lips and eyes pulled tight. She was certain Chilton was looking for something scandalous he could use in an article or book, and scandalous, he certainly would get. 

“Yes, Ma'am,” Dennis said, reaching for buttons on his dashboard and with a flicker of the screen, Hannibal's cell came into a perfect, clear view from the left corner of the ceiling. Alana had prepared herself for the view she was expecting to see, but what came into the frame was enough to make her mouth fall open as she drew a sharp breath and gulped a flustered “Oh.” Beside her, Dennis sighed, seemingly familiar with what appeared on screen while Chilton gasped openly in shock and delight as he clasped his hands together in front of his chin: “Oh my,” he gasped, in an act of surprise as he stepped closer to the moving image in front of him and roamed his eyes freely over the frame. Alana almost, almost considered telling Hannibal about it afterwards.

They were fucking, that much was obvious. Of course, with Will's heat, it was an essential and often repeated activity in Hannibal's cell. Alana had heard the whispers among the guards of how loud, hard and creative the two could get, and there certainly had been no complains about shifts on the monitor room since the past two days. Will was sprawled over the table on his belly, clawing at the edges as Hannibal had a firm hand in his curls and pulled back his head as he pumped his hips hard and fast to fuck into his reeling mate. The tugging fingers on Will's hair caused him to move his torso upwards, following after the strain and it wasn't before long that Hannibal grabbed the Omega by the throat and heeled him up against his chest as he kept up the punishing thrusts with his cock, disappearing completely into Will's trembling body. One of Will's knees came to rest upon the table as he spread his legs wider, encouraged by a stroking hand across his thighs and scraping teeth against his neck. 

“Turn on the audio,” Chilton said shamelessly, and before Alana could protest, Dennis had turned open the volume with his thumb. A stream of heated growls and grunts filled the control room, together with a howling whine of a desperate Omega. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me,” Will's broken cries sounded over the speakers and Alana swallowed, averting her eyes. Chilton wrung his hands together and his good eye shone like it was Christmas morning. “Who knew Mr. Graham had such a foul mouth,” he said, barely repressing a grin. “Frederick,” Alana scolded, her lips agape in disgust as she stared at him, but Chilton was unfazed by her disapproval. “Well, it is quite something, isn't it? Look at them,” he said, practically pressing his nose to the screen.

“I'd rather not.” Alana shuddered as Hannibal pulled completely out of Will and flipped him over to his back. Will's howls without his mate were those of pain and despair and Alana felt the noise wringing her soul like the cry of a wounded animal. “I had no idea Dr. Lecter was so... well equipped,” Chilton chimed, turning an eye to Alana. “You did, of course.” Dennis coughed into his coffee and Alana felt certain she was going to tell Hannibal about this. All of it. Yes, Hannibal's Alpha form was truly impressive. She wasn't blind. It was even more impressive now than it had been when they...

Hannibal had pushed himself back inside and Will was positively mewling with every thrust as he clawed at Hannibal's chest and arms and face to get as much as he could. Hannibal had Will in a vice grip with one hand on his sternum and one back on his curls to pull back his head. Their kisses were furious snarls of their teeth, nipping blood from lips and tongues. It was a savage piece of art, but Alana would never, ever admit that to anyone other than herself. Chilton's ears peaked when Will's voice wailed over the speakers and shuddered. “He is just beside himself, look at his eyes,” he said, pointing at Will's tilted head with eyes that only showed white and twitched uncontrollably while they had rolled back in his head. It was quite eerie, how this showed his complete and entire surrender.

“They are animals, so raw and pure,” Chilton said, a hint of longing in his voice as he pressed his face so close to the monitor his nose almost touched the screen. “Touch me,”Will begged and Hannibal wrapped steady fingers around his leaking cock as he pounded into the pliant body beneath him and bit Will's shoulder until he bled into his mouth. “It's not always that rough,” Dennis said, staring at the monitor with something that resembled melancholy. “They cuddle too, when they're not...” A powerful roar shattered through the room and interrupted Dennis mid sentence when Will arched his back and tensed hard around his Alpha. White splatters of release landed around them as Hannibal fucked him hard through his orgasm. “Oh, not the table,”Alana heard herself say and she flushed red when Hannibal bent forward to lick at a splatter of white on Will's belly as the Omega continued to shake and shudder. They kissed, open mouths, tongues and Will's semen exchanged between them and the control room was stunned into silence, watching those lips smile into the kiss.

The Alpha collected his mate in his arms as he pulled him up in an embrace before sitting back in the chair positioned behind him. Will was on his lap, still connected, deep and whole. Their lips touched in short, sweet kisses that sounded wet and loud over the microphone as they pressed close and nuzzled each other like loving animals. Will's breathing was heard gradually slowing, calming as Hannibal stroked down his table-marked back. “Oh that was powerful,” Chilton said, a little breathless himself and eyes glued to the screen. The room was filled with those wet noises of lips on lips, quiet whispers and the slide of skin on skin. “See, I told you they cuddle,” Dennis said innocently. Alana wanted to look away and show her disapproval, but then Hannibal reached for Will's hips and pulled him down around his cock as he thrust up inside the Omega. “I'm going to make you come again,” he whispered, and that voice over the speakers, saying those words, made Alana's skin tighten in goosebumps. “Can he?” Chilton asked, looking at Dennis with curious, manic eyes. “Oh yes, he can,” Dennis affirmed, nodding enthusiastically.

The change of positions showed a very clear view of where Hannibal's cock slid into Will slick hole, and when the Omega whimpered into Hannibal's mouth and started to move his hips gracefully up and down the Alpha's hard cock, Alana admitted to not looking away while Chilton and Dennis were staring wide-eyed at the screen. They fucked, first with grace and then with strength, until they both growled and cried and whispered against each other, muffled by mouths that nipped and licked and bit against skin. Will came between them, penetrated hard and deep as well as stroked wholly by Hannibal's tightly folded hand, releasing himself for the second time on his own belly and his Alpha's fingers with a wild cry and trembling thighs. Hannibal's cock swelled at the base as he fucked his knot inside Will's eager body with a dangerous growl and embedded himself to the hilt into the sobbing Omega as he too trembled and groaned through his orgasm.

“Is he...?” Chilton started, staring as the wide part of Hannibal's knot disappeared into Will's tight opening. “They're usually stuck on each other for about an hour,” Dennis said, and Chilton gasped audibly as he watched where the two men were joined. Alana breathed, forcing her heartbeat to slow. She hadn't wanted to see that, but now that she had, it was going to be hard to erase it from her retina. “My lord, does he ever stop?” Chilton said when Hannibal shuddered inside Will again, who clenched hard around his mate. Over the speaker, Will was heard chuckling against Hannibal's neck. “It usually takes a while.” Dennis said. “Does anyone want coffee?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crazy!! The amount of comments and love on the last chapter were truely, madly, deeply crazy!! I was blown away even more than usual and it really gave me a kick in the butt to write and update fast, because I am so so grateful!  
> Thank you all so much for giving me so much support that I really truely cherish, and I really hope you like this one! *fingers crossed*


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will pressed his fingers into the paper and heard it crinkling under his touch. “I have an appointment with Dr. Hammings, tomorrow at 10:45,” he said, grateful to see the word 'tomorrow' actually printed out on the page. He had no clue whatsoever of how much time he had spent here, what date it was or which day of the week. The name Dr. Hammings, rang a bell far, far away through a thick fog inside his mind, where there was cheap fluorescent light, sterile beds and pain, pain, fiery, screaming pain. He swallowed at the memory and lowered the paper sheet as Hannibal came to stand beside him. “How considerate of Alana. An undiscussed, unapproved doctor's appointment,” he said through pursed lips as he ran a possessive finger down Will's spine.

Alana did not meet their eyes once when she came into the cell to inform Will about an appointment she had arranged for him with the head of Medical. “He might be able to answer some of your questions,” she said, handing him a piece of paper with a time and name that failed to find footing in Will's head. Her eyes were on the wall, on her shoes, on her hands, heat evident on her face when Hannibal twitched his lips while standing behind Will's back. Will took the paper from the deposit box and thanked her. She left with a nod, the click of her heels and nothing else.

Will pressed his fingers into the paper and heard it crinkling under his touch. “I have an appointment with Dr. Hammings, tomorrow at 10:45,” he said, grateful to see the word 'tomorrow' actually printed out on the page. He had no clue whatsoever of how much time he had spent here, what date it was or which day of the week. The name Dr. Hammings, rang a bell far, far away through a thick fog inside his mind, where there was cheap fluorescent light, sterile beds and pain, pain, fiery, screaming pain. 

He swallowed at the memory and lowered the paper sheet as Hannibal came to stand beside him. “How considerate of Alana. An undiscussed, unapproved doctor's appointment,” he said through pursed lips as he ran a possessive finger down Will's spine. The touch made the Omega shiver for every reason thinkable, as Will turned his head away and folded the paper between his fingers. “I approve,” he mumbled defiantly before stepping away from the dominant touch and tucking the appointment inside his sleeve. The jumpsuit had, unsurprisingly, nothing that resembled pockets.

“What will happen when I leave the room without you?” Will asked, both curious and concerned as he turned to Hannibal, a newly created distance between them. Hannibal looked back, an unbroken stare with eyes made of earth and ice, rather blue than red, before he focused on the closed off fireplace beside him. “Your heat is already quite contained,” he said, his voice undefinable. “I suspect we will both feel the sting of the other's absence, but you will not be taken far,” he said, absently caressing the empty mantelpiece with his fingers. “I'm certain they will bring you back to me if our separation becomes unbearable.” Will watched those fingers, unable to stop imagining them on his skin, and felt something restless clawing up from his knees to the hollow of his throat. He remained silent, staring at his Alpha's profile, stark against the white wall, until those amber eyes caught him with a cold, deep longing.

“What about you?” Will asked, running his gaze past the sharp bones of his face, the scar on his cheek, the silver streak of hair. Hannibal's lips smiled, but nothing else in his face followed. “I'm certain they will be less considerate of me,” he said and Will grimaced openly, unable to stop the downward pull of his face. He knew it was the truth. Hannibal would not be helped, or saved, or even considered, being who he was, where he was. Outside, he had never needed anyone, but in here...

If Will stopped, for a mere second, fighting everything that was reeling under his skin, wailing inside his mind, howling in his very soul, he would feel the outrage inside of him at the thought of his Alpha, alone and suffering inside this suffocating place, vulnerable and weakened without his mate. He would refuse to set foot outside this cell, refuse anything other than what could keep them together. Inside his bones, there was a primal tug, a call, a reckless desire to protect. But Will never did stop fighting those Omega cries. He never stopped fighting any of it. Fighting was all he ever knew. And it was all that was expected of him.

Hannibal stepped closer, lifting a single finger to stroke down Will's cheek as his cold smile warmed, and his hard eyes grew soft. “Don't worry,” he said, reading what Will laid bare in his eyes. “We will have close contact before you go.” He brushed a curl off his Omega's forehead and Will rose an eyebrow. “Close contact...,” he repeated, keeping straight eyes on the Alpha as he tilted his head in question. Hannibal didn't blink when he answered “I'll knot you”, making Will's eyes widen and his cheeks burn. “Jesus, Hannibal,” he mumbled, stepping away from the Alpha's touch and turning towards the table. Before he could move, however, Hannibal's finger brushed past his torso and pulled the folded invitation out from the inside of his sleeve.

Will watched him take it as he let himself fall into a chair, unwilling to have another argument. Hannibal unfolded the paper and scanned its contents as he took a seat across from Will. “Dear Dr. Hammings,” Hannibal inhaled sharply through his nose before bringing his eyes back to his Omega, who had placed both his arms on the table to rest his head upon them. “If he lays a finger on you...,” Hannibal's voice was laced with threat that he would certainly do good on, but Will ignored him, pondering as he scanned his eyes over windowless walls. “How long have I been here? I completely lost my sense of time,” he sighed, rubbing hands over his tired eyes. Hannibal brought his eyes back to the paper in his hands. “Three full days by tomorrow morning,” he answered, eyes lingering at the top of Will's wild curls, who had dropped his head to rest on his arms.

“It feels longer than that,” Will murmured into his arm. “And shorter, somehow.” Hannibal tilted his head and slid the refolded paper across the table, offering it back to Will who stretched out his fingers in a weak attempt to grab it. “It is very common to lose your senses in an isolated situation such as this,” he said, and Will sighed against the fabric of his sleeve. “ _You_ don't,” he said, hearing the confirmation in Hannibal's silence and he smiled into the crook of his own elbow, continuing: “to me, this is one outstretched moment in which everything just bleeds together.” 

He could hear Hannibal tapping his fingers on the tabletop across from him. “Well, we have been rather occupied,” Hannibal said, a hint of a pull at his lips as Will flicked his eyes up, fixing Hannibal with an unimpressed glare of ocean green. Will tucked the paper back in his sleeve and placed his chin on his hands, looking up at the Alpha opposite him as he scratched at the rims of his own fingernails. 

Just for a moment, those amber eyes seemed to be away, gone somewhere deep and lost, a moment of frozen time, before he looked right back into Will's open stare. “Ask the doctor whatever you wish to know, Will,” Hannibal said, his voice even but his eyes thick with the smoke of a starting fire. “But when you come back, please ask me the same questions and I promise I will tell you the truth.” There were hard lines around his mouth, and Will lifted his head off of his arms. “What do you think is going to happen?” he asked, his dark eyebrows knitting close together and his pink lips parted.

“They will try to separate us,” Hannibal spoke with a hushed voice, leaning closer over the table, a twitch of his nostrils visible. Will saw a hard strain behind his eyes, a lack of control, an untamable force that Hannibal always carried within, although that never showed on the outside. But to Will, as he looked back at his mate, it was clear as day. Hannibal was vulnerable, now that he had something that could be taken away, that he could not afford to lose. The thought of being Hannibal's Achilles' heel made Will's insides clench, but to look across the table and see the almighty, unslayable Hannibal looking so human in his weakness, did give the Omega a secret thrill of satisfaction, accompanied by a sweeping tenderness that spread inside him like a misty spray of water drops. “You're a convicted serial killer and a cannibal, and I'm Jack's special pet project,” Will said sourly, raising an eyebrow at Hannibal. “Can you blame them?”

It was only due to Will's improved hearing that he heard Hannibal's teeth grinding inside his mouth, face stoic, eyes like slits. “I can do so much more than that, Will,” he said, and the Omega felt the words traveling heavily down his spine and pooling around his thighs. “Even now.” Amber was burning in those tiger eyes he had come to know so well. Every promise of Hannibal Lecter was a certainty, a happening in waiting. Will pursed his lips and stood up from the table. “I have no doubt.”

**

“Hello mister Graham, please take a seat,” Dr. Hammings smiled kindly at the fragile Omega stepping into his office, and gestured to the empty seat from across his desk. Will looked small and pale in his oversized prison suit, escorted by big and broad security guards who were dressed in black and armed with guns. Will stepped into the room and looked back to see the guards had placed themselves on either side of the outside door, before they closed it behind him and Will jumped a little at the sudden movement. Dr. Hammings rose from his chair, again gesturing to the empty seat with a patient, gentle expression one would sooner find on a caretaker of wounded, frightened animals. 

“No need to be worried, mister Graham, I'm here to help you. Please,” the doctor said, lightly tapping the seat, his smile baring cigarette-stained teeth. In his other hand, he held reading the glasses hanging from a chord around his neck. Will stepped forward, feeling disoriented inside the bright, white office, illuminated by sunlight that streamed in from surrounding windows and showed traffic driving by on the road below. It was unnerving to see how the world still existed, moved and turned outside that cell, away from his Alpha. Will felt like a kept animal, released in the wild, restless, aimless, feeling like every step forward was a wrong one. “Unless it is uncomfortable for you to sit?” Dr. Hammings suggested gently, but Will noticed his soft tone was suddenly laced with implication as his blue eyes widened meaningfully at the Omega. Will swallowed and felt the blood pumping straight to his ears. Certainly, he wasn't implying...

“No, no. Not at all,” Will stammered quickly and he hurried to the empty seat with two large steps and promptly dropped himself onto the wooden surface, and if that didn't prove how well he could still sit... “Thank you for coming,” the doctor said, reaching out an old hand to shake Will's. The touch was unwelcome and Will's fingers curled away when the cool, parchment like skin touched his. _No_ , everything inside him rebelled, _that touch wasn't right_. Will drew his hand back the moment he was released and leaned back into his chair as far as he could without slouching. Dr. Hammings only smiled, placing his joined hands before him on the desktop. “Do you remember me?” he asked and Will blinked. He remembered the white coat, and he remembered the voice beside his bed. “Flashes,” he admitted and Dr. Hammings smiled. “That is perfectly normal,” he said, as if Will had expressed concern. “My name is Dr. Hammings and I am the head of the health department of this facility.”

“Prison,” Will corrected, glancing at the guards that could be spotted outside through a strip of glass beside the door. “It is officially a hospital facility,” Dr. Hammings countered, his lips twitching under his smile and Will bit the inside of his cheek. “For the criminally insane,” he added, pressing his arms close to his stomach and folding further into himself. There was a silence that lasted for mere seconds but felt so much longer, before Dr. Hammings cleared his throat. “Which brings us to the subject of Dr. Lecter,” he said, and Will felt a cruel stab in his chest, an open, bleeding hole that was the absence of his Alpha. Inside, everything felt stiff with cold, and hollow with emptiness, exposed and vulnerable without the blazing heat that surrounded his mate.

“Right,” Will said, a little absentminded as Dr. Hammings took hold of a notepad on his desk and placed the reading glasses on top of his crooked nose. “I understand you have many questions, but I will first...,” he attempted to open, holding a pen to the top of a list of words written down on the opened page, but Will placed both his hands firmly on the desk before him. “What is Per mutua nexis?” he interrupted. “Is that what we are, Hannibal and I?” his voice was urgent and his eyes demandingly targeting the poor doctor, who looked back up at Will with a stunned expression as the pen in his hand sagged downwards in his loosening grip.

“Mister Graham, I'm afraid I don't have the proper education...,” Dr. Hammings stammered, eyes back to his notepad, but Will scraped his seat close to the table and leaned forward. “Are we?” he urged, feeling his lips twitching with the fear he felt brooding, nesting and breeding within him. “Doctor, I have a wife,” he said, his voice unsteady at the thought of his Molly. His insides churned and ground at the image of her he carried in his head. An image that appeared so briefly, so fragile, he could barely make out her face before she was erased by tiger eyes and winter fire. “I need to know what I'm going to tell her.” Dr. Hammings swallowed visibly before folding his hands back on the desk, his notepad forgotten. Watery blue eyes looked into Will with a pity that made Will's lip want to curl up into a snarl, but he controlled the urge as the doctor took a deep breath.

“I believe you and Dr. Lecter are indeed a Per mutua nexis pair of Alpha and Omega,” he said, carefully, formally, and Will's breath stuttered. “What does that mean?” he demanded, digging nails into the desk. “I need to understand.” Dr. Hammings nodded, his fingers playing absently with the reading glasses that were back around his neck. “It's a rare occurrence,” he said. “Even rarer now that your species is so close to extinction. It means that you and your Alpha are a perfect match, biologically, physically and mentally. Two sides of the same coin, so to speak.”

The same coin. Will's lips parted as he stared at the old man across from him. If it wouldn't be so cruel, he would have laughed. _You and I have begun to blur_ , he had said. _We're conjoined_. He had felt it, then. He remembered. But he never understood what it meant. “How does that differ from a normal Alpha and Omega?” he asked, breathing heavily through his nose. His loins started to grow warm inside his belly and his skin ached like a sunburn. It was already becoming painfully clear that he wouldn't last long outside the cell.

“Per mutua nexis means _intertwined_. You are, in many ways, the same,” Dr. Hammings said and Will couldn't help but huff loudly at the words. The doctor ignored his bitter chuckles and patiently continued, trying to hide his hesitation behind his professional demeanor. “You were both, in a sense, created for the other. There is no chance of a stronger, better suitor for either one of you, and no change of a more satisfying partnership. Together, you will be stronger, safer, healthier, happier, more satisfied...,” he said open-endedly, his pale cheeks turning pink at the last part of his sentence. Will pressed his lips together with so much vigor they turned white. A tight hand seemed to have wrapped around his ribcage, squeezing around his heart and lungs. “Really?” his breathing became shallow. “How can you be sure that that's what we are?”

The doctor smiled, and Will wanted to claw those old, thin lips off his face. “In my long career I have witnessed Alpha's and Omega's presenting and mating many times,” he said, a splatter of pride mixed in with the words. “And even if I combined all of those, it would still be more civilized than what I have witnessed between the two of you. Your primal instincts and urges are, simply put, off the charts.” The pink was back on his ears and Will bit his lower lip until it would certainly bruise. “It doesn't normally go like this?” he asked, wishing he would sound less exposed. Their violent, desperate mating, that was something he had excused as 'normal' behavior for an Omega in heat. “Not typically, no,” Dr. Hammings shattered that idea to pieces. “It is extremely fascinating to see how perfectly aligned you are. Your needs, your primal urges, your physical compatibility, your fury and... enthusiasm.” The pink ears turned red now as the doctor started cleaning his glasses with his white coat and Will folded his fingers into a fist to hide the tremor in his hands.

“I'm just going to ignore everything that implies that you've watched us fucking,” he said bluntly, watching the old man's eyed widening and his face turning a shade of maroon. “For research purposes, of course. I'm sure you understand,” he quickly stammered, holding up his hands as Will flicked his eyes to the ceiling. “Swell.”

“The point I am trying to make...,” Dr Hammings swallowed as he tried to overcome the stutter in his voice. “Is that I'm indeed convinced you and Dr. Lecter are a Per mutua nexis couple.” He folded his hands back on the table, trying to seem undisturbed and professional. “The way you presented and the way your Alpha responded, was beyond anything I have even read about, let alone witnessed,” he said, pausing as he scratched behind his ear and caught Will's shifting eyes. “I feared for your life, when you were brought into my care. If we had kept you apart, I'm certain this condition, in your case, could be fatal.” Will lowered his eyes from the doctor's gaze, biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. He felt weak and ill and raw liked chafed skin. He needed Hannibal. The doctor cleared his throat. “But, we can never be completely sure that you are an Per mutua nexis couple until the two of you have bonded.” Will coughed against the saliva that was sucked into his lungs when he gasped. “Why would you think we are getting bonded?” he wheezed, eyes wide and lips agape as little red veins popped in his eye-whites. 

Dr. Hammings jumped slightly at his outraged cry. “My apologies,” he quickly offered. “I assumed, because it's in your nature to do so and it has so many advantages... Forgive me,” he said, showing his palms to the Omega. “I certainly did not mean to imply anything.” Will licked his lips, his eyebrows low over his eyes. It was harder and harder to concentrate when he felt a tug from the inside, pulling him in an opposite direction. “Advantages?” was all he replied and Dr. Hammings nodded quickly. “After bonding, a couple's connection grows much stronger. Your minds and emotions will be attuned, aligned. Heats will be less aggressive and it will improve your health, happiness and lifespan for both of you,” the doctor said. “Unbonded, the Omega in you will continue to crave that bond, as it provides you with the ultimate protection for you and your family.”

Will felt a violent twitch at that last word. For a brief moment, his mind pictured Abigail, sitting at the dinner table in Hannibal's house, placed on a chair between the two of them. He blinked to get rid of the image. “Male Omega's are unfertile,” he snorted and Dr. Hammings lowered his eyes before looking back at the seething Omega. “Family can mean whatever you want it to mean, mister Graham.” He said, rueful smile around his lips. Will swallowed, his nostrils flaring. “What if I want it to mean my wife and stepson?” he said between tight lips and Dr. Hammings frowned his gray, bushy eyebrows. “Living separately from your Alpha will be difficult, Mr. Graham,” he said, and Will felt his throat closing and his skin tightening. “Difficult... But not impossible?” he choked. If it wasn't, if it wasn't, he would have to try, for Molly. He would have to go. He would have to. She had already lost one husband, she couldn't lose him too. Not like this.

“It depends how much you want it,” the doctor said, and Will wished he could snort, but found that he couldn't find the air. “The quality and lifespan of your life will be reduced, but if you can tolerate it, there might be a chance you can live separately between your heats,” the doctor said as he crossed out something on his notepad. Will stared at him before he closed his open mouth. “H-heats? How many heats?” Dr Hammings clicked his tongue. “Once every three months is regular. I wish I could subscribe you medication that would suppress it, but in your case that would be most unhealthy,” he said, shaking his head and meeting Will's reddening eyes. “Heats without your Alpha, even unbonded, can be fatal for a Per mutua nexis pair. Even the regular pairings can suffer heart problems and sometimes brain damage during heats without their mates, mostly due to hyperventilation, exhaustion, enfeeblement,....”

There was a silence during which Will stared at the wall behind Dr. Hammings' head. The pain inside him, the absence, was baring down on him harder and harder already. But he knew now, that when his heat was over, he would have to try and leave. For Molly. For the man he had decided to be, those years ago. “I understand you do not wish to stay with Dr. Lecter?” Dr. Hammings asked, his voice surprisingly neutral as Will's eyes shot down to his hands. His tongue pressed against his teeth as he swallowed against the thickness in his throat. 

“I'm married. I can't just...,” he knew he sounded lost and fragile and not at all in control of his life anymore as he let the silence trail on without finding the right words to break it. Dr. Hammings held up his hand. “I do understand,” he said with an encouraging smile. “However, it is most common for a presented Omega to leave behind any other attachments.” His voice was factual, but the rising of Will's eyebrows made him backpedal. “Not that I am...” He didn't make an effort to complete the sentence as he clapped his hands in front of his face. “Look,” the doctor said, “your emotions and regards change from the moment a pair meets. Love connections for an Omega with any other than his Alpha are extremely difficult, even before presenting.”

Will knew how unstable he must have looked when he laughed openly and humorlessly with his head in his neck. Difficult to make a love connection with anyone, the doctor said. He had never felt more than an adorable flutter for any love interest in his life. There had only ever been one who made him feel, and what he made him feel shattered him completely with its intensity. As much pleasure, as much of it pain. “I can't abandon my family. They have been so good to me,” Will croaked, thinking about his soft, warm, quiet life with Molly. The heat and the beauty only ever skimmed the mere surface of his being, but it was the closest thing he had to normal, stable, content. 

Will blinked, looking right into those pale blue eyes and shuddered as he spoke. “But it hurts to breathe without him,” he confessed, swallowing heavily. The doctor smiled again. “It is perfectly normal for a new Omega...,” he started but Will shook his head. “No, I mean... It was like that, even before I presented,” he uttered between his teeth, his cheeks paling and his pupils dilating at the thought of his mate. “It's worse now, certainly, but it was always like that without him. My body knew, long before my brain did, that we are made to be together,” he said, letting the words fall out as they came to his mouth, before he could rethink them. Admitting the truth to a stranger, before he could even admit it to himself. 

The doctor didn't look appalled. Instead he nodded at his words. “That doesn't surprise me,” he said. “Even when your mind and body were not ready to present, it already must have recognized Dr. Lecter as your perfect match.” Will chuckled this time, eyes on his knees. “My perfect match. Hannibal Lecter,” He said, defeat present in his voice. “He's the representation of evil and death,” Will breathed out between his clenched jaws. “He's the devil.” He said, raising his eyes to the old man before him.   
“And I have always felt such a desire to join him.” 

Will's voice was a whisper, knowing the good doctor could have had him crucified for that confession, but instead he said nothing and Will felt the moisture gathering in his eyes. “And there is a part of me that feels that this could be an easy way out of the suffocating sanity of this world, and into the darkness that is his,” he sniffled, his nose dry, and he heard the doctor shuffling in his seat. “You are afraid to become like him? That your true self is like Dr. Lecter?” he asked and Will lifted his eyes to the old man before him.“I _am_ him, remember? Isn't that what we are discussing here? Per mutua nexis.”

The doctor took a breath, his eyes on Will. “You are afraid to lose yourself in your desires,” he said and Will tightened his lips. “No,” he whispered. “I'm afraid to find myself in them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guysss, last chapter exploded with all the love! You sure have a lot to say about Chilton XD I love it! ^.^ This chapter is smutless, I know, I know, but in return there is some Alpha/Omega knowledge for Will, who is a tiny bit in distress right now, with his heat close to being over. LOVE all of the support and love and messages! It makes me so happy, you have no idea! You guys are the best and the sweetest and the funniest and the prettiest, which is what the Hannibal fandom is known for ;-)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It could be possible,” Will said, as Hannibal stepped from the table to fully turn to him. “It will be agony, Will,” he said and Will saw, for the first time, open fear in his amber eyes. It was a curious sight, one he was unfamiliar with, and it instantly threw him off. Hannibal stepped closer, pain evident on the sharp angles on his face, and reached a finger out to stroke against Will's cheek. “You will suffer,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on the Omega so intrusively that Will averted his eyes to his knees. “I can't just choose you, Hannibal,” he spoke quietly. “What would that make me?” He stared at the fingers of his hands as Hannibal leaned closer, brushing lips to his temple. “Mine,” he spoke, deep, possessive, breath hot as Will shuddered at the lips against his ear.

“Touch me,” Will breathed, quickly moving towards his Alpha the moment Hannibal was freed from his restraints and the guards had left their cell. “Yes,” Hannibal met him halfway with equally fervid strides and instantly wrapped himself around his smaller mate, pressing open lips to the Omega's neck. His hands slid over Will's back, clad in jumpsuit, and held onto the two full cheeks of his ass with a firm squeeze. Will felt hot breath beneath his ear and chuckled when he experienced a rush of pure, golden pleasure replacing the tight, raspy pain of loss he had carried inside. He was bathing in everything good and right, like coming home from a war.

“Just a touch, Hannibal. A hand on my shoulder would have done,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips and heat stirring inside his belly. Hannibal pressed them closer with firm hands on his mate's lower back, sharing body heat through their clothes, before he loosened his grip and pulled back his head. “I apologize,” he said, a hint of mirthful smile around his mouth. “But please consider this more than civilized, compared to the first time you walked in here.” The words pulled at Will's lips as he saw a flash of their vigorous coupling on the damaged table behind his eyes, before shaking the rousing image from his mind and looking back into his Alpha's face. “Have you been in pain?”, he asked, his concern honest on his face as his back pressed against the touch of Hannibal's hand. The amber eyes that stared back lacked any emotional reflection for him to read as Hannibal tilted his head with careful precision. “In your absence, always,” he said, baring a hint of teeth, on the verge of mocking and Will pursed his lips in annoyance, feeling ridiculed for showing kindness, vulnerability. Maybe Hannibal recognized it for something else instead. Guilt, to blanket and hide the rubble beneath.

Before he could step away, Hannibal grabbed both his upper arms and stepped past him to move in from behind, nose to his neck, breathing in deep. “So, what did the good doctor say?”, Hannibal hummed against his skin, ignoring Will's tense shoulders as his lips brushed beneath the skin of his ear before inhaling deeply and openly in Will's hair. “Are you trying to smell him on me?”, Will asked, stepping forward and out of Hannibal's scenting, intrusive nose. “Fortunately, not a lot,” the Alpha grunted behind him, meaning every word, and Will turned back at him with a derisive chuckle.

“Did you think he invited me over for a fuck?”, he asked Hannibal, playfully raising his dark eyebrows. There was a second of thick, white silence where Hannibal froze and Will could see the muscles in his body tensing up under his clothes. Not a hair on The Alpha's body as much as trembled as his pupils blazed into open fire, before he grabbed the nearest chair within his reach and threw it against the glass wall with full force. Will jumped back at the sudden crash, gasping out loud as the piece of furniture bounced from the undamaged glass and landed back bent and dented on the hardwood floor. Then, silence. 

“Jesus, Hannibal,” Will exclaimed with widened eyes as he rose his arms wide. “It was a joke.” Hannibal stood on his spot, shoulders low and eyes unblinking before he turned sideways, slowly, intently, to look at his mate. “It is beyond me, Will,” he confessed, looking rather unsettled behind his stoic posture. “Yes,” Will said, feeling breathless. He crossed his arms over his torso and let air escape between his tightened lips. “I understand that feeling.” He inhaled deeply and shuddered at the memory of all the things that had happened beyond him. Hannibal nodded, swallowed and looked at the damaged chair, folded on the floor. “Forgive me,” he said, his eyes trailing back to Will, whose lips stretched as he shook his head to dismiss the apparent need for an apology. 

The Omega perched himself against the edge of the table, leaning against the surface while still resting both feet on the prison's hardwood floor. “He told me some things about Omega's and Alpha's,” he broke the pressing silence, shifting eyes towards Hannibal who had folded his hands behind his back. “Did he explain to you the meaning of Per mutua nexis?”, Hannibal asked, back to his old, calm exterior, and Will licked nervously at his dry lips. “Yes,” he said, wiggling his toes in the cotton, prison loafers. “Did he confirm that that is what we are?”, Hannibal pressed, rocking himself ever so slightly on the balls of his feet as Will placed his hands beside his hips on the table, leaning back. “He didn't specify,” he said between tight lips, bending and twisting the truth to accommodate him, but Hannibal stepped towards him with curious, smoldering eyes of liquid gold. “Don't play games,” he all but whispered, prowling towards him until they were knees to knees and Will could feel the heat of his skin. “It is what we are. I know it, and so do you.” He leaned in, and lips brushed the skin of Will's cheek before Hannibal pulled back. “And so does the good doctor.”

They stood close together, Will leaning against the table while Hannibal placed his hands next to his mate's, close to his hips. Will remained silent, but never looked away from the eyes of the predator before him who stared back with a deep, searching longing before he blinked, briefly lowered his gaze and suddenly bared his fangs in what appeared to be dangerous amusement. “Did he comment on our mating?”, Hannibal asked rather boldly, raising his eyebrows as Will flinched, snorting quite involuntarily. Hannibal's eyes narrowed, only a fraction of a second. “Because I happen to know he is quite the fanatic collector of certain prison tapes. All in the name of mother science.” The sly smile on the Alpha's lips promised blood and Will looked away, grimacing deeply before a huff and then a chuckle escaped from between his lips. Hannibal knew, always, everything. “Oh, he did,” the Omega grunted before he took hold of the front of Hannibal's jumpsuit with his fingers. “He said you have much to learn from me,” he couldn't help but tease. He looked at the open, lively eyes before him, unable to stop himself from smiling as he watched Hannibal mirroring his expression. “That I do,” the Alpha said, a fondness in his eyes that made it harder for Will to breathe.

Hannibal leaned close again, pressing lips against Will's. “Per mutua nexis,” he whispered, brushing around Will's parted mouth. “Together we are one, perfect being.” Will closed his eyes, pleasure weakening his lower jaw as he felt hands drifting over his overalls. “Stop, please,” he whispered, placing two hands against his Alpha's broad chest. Hannibal froze, straightened and pulled away the moment Will said the word, leaning back from his face and body with concerned, searching eyes.

Will swallowed, pushing at the heat in his loins as he looked at his Alpha and took a deep, unsteady breath. “My heat is almost over,” he said, voice soft as his knuckles pressed into the table. Hannibal looked back, trying out words on his lips. He looked more vulnerable now than Will had ever seen him, more even than when Will had asked him to leave, to go, to never come back. Hannibal asked him now, plain and simple; “Will you leave?” 

The question was oddly straightforward for a man of so many words, but Will felt it stinging deep within him. “Yes,” he said, watching Hannibal's face remain unchanged, but his eyes deepened, darkened, pupils drawing wide like a dangerous beast, ready to pounce. “Are you going to see your wife?”, he asked and Will inhaled, hands restless against the table. “Yes,” he said again and watched Hannibal licking his lips briefly before he blinked, clenched his teeth and leaned closer. His face had become a maze of purple, blood-filled veins and his eyes a black, bottomless abyss. There was a heat to the room, a fire, hot and scorching, uncomfortable to bare skin, that filled the air around him.

“Will, listen to what I have to say...”, he started, keeping their eyes connected hard and hot and stinging. “If she touches you...”, the words were spoken softly, gently almost, but Will curled up his lip at them, feeling a spike of anger flaring at such an unfinished, unjustifiable threat. “Then what? What are you going to do?”, he hissed, defiant and angry, before he saw Hannibal freezing again, trembling with rage before him, until he turned to the nearest bed and snatched it up, inhumanly fast, inhumanly strong, hurling it across the room with a violent growl from between his teeth, only barely missing his books. Will jumped, hands up next to his head. “Ok, ok,” he gasped, feeling his mate's turmoil like a blizzard inside his own heart. “Just... calm down,” he hushed soothingly, as he approached him with careful steps and reached out his hand to instinctively place it on Hannibal shoulder. Muscles hard as rock seemed to unwind under his touch.

“I've told you this is beyond me,” Hannibal said quietly, his breathing a little uneven as he looked at the broken bed frame, already an unwelcome reminder that they would not be sharing a space anymore. He turned to Will, eyes close to pleading. “You don't believe I can't find a way out of here?”, he said. Will looked and heard him. It was not a threat, but a warning. The beast inside him was not always under his control. Not anymore. And Hannibal wished to spare Will from the grief he knew would follow, would the Alpha in him find a need to escape. 

“Be sure not to smell like her when you come to see me,” he spoke, controlled again, careful, critical, and Will felt his skin breaking out in harsh goosebumps. “Don't tell me you were with her.” There was defeat in his words and Will swallowed against the grief that fell on him like a dark, smothering blanket. Hannibal had always enjoyed and reveled in his bloodlust, but now that his Omega would be released to the perilous world, he knew the Alpha inside of him could become his master, leading him beyond his own controlled and mapped-out mind. He leaned against the table beside Will before taking a deep, calming breath. “This is all very unsettling,” he said and Will almost laughed, hanging his head low and watching his curls fall before his eyes. He felt boiled, slowly, inside a thick concoction of pure misery.

“Not just for you,” he said, pushing up with his arms to lift himself onto the table. Hannibal was next to him, one hip against the edge, one foot linked across his ankle, and even in his casual posture, Will thought he would put a ballet dancer to shame. Full control and pure grace, once again. “Did the doctor tell you it is safe for you to leave when your heat is over?”, Hannibal asked him, pink lips pursed in unpleasant thought. Will wished he did not feel the need to slide closer to the Alpha and wrap arms around those tense shoulders, feel them loosen. “He told me I can try and live without you, the months between my heats,” Will said, remaining on his spot on the table and Hannibal turned to him with a sharp turn of his head. “No,” he said, shaking his head with a short, jerky movement as his eyes glowed a matte orange, reminding Will of frozen fire.

“It could be possible,” Will said, as Hannibal stepped from the table to fully turn to him. “It will be agony, Will,” he said and Will saw, for the first time, open fear in his amber eyes. It was a curious sight, one he was unfamiliar with, and it instantly threw him off. Hannibal stepped closer, pain evident on the sharp angles on his face, and reached a finger out to stroke against Will's cheek. “You will suffer,” he whispered, keeping his eyes on the Omega so intrusively that Will averted his eyes to his knees. “I can't just choose you, Hannibal,” he spoke quietly. “What would that make me?” He stared at the fingers of his hands as Hannibal leaned closer, brushing lips to his temple. “Mine,” he spoke, deep, possessive, breath hot as Will shuddered at the lips against his ear. Fingers reached for Will's, but the Omega quickly pulled back his hand and slid off the table. “I have to try,” he said, knowing Hannibal could see the pressing tears in his eyes. “For my family.”

“Your family?”, Hannibal said, a smile around his lips as though listening to Will in the midst of telling a joke, but his eyes never lit. “And what is it you want, Will?”, the Alpha asked, and Will narrowed his eyes as he threw Hannibal an venomous glare. It was cruel to ask him that. It wasn't something he could think about... it couldn't be a concern. “I have to do this, for the person I ought to be, Hannibal,” he bit. “I can still choose to be the person I have decided to be, that day you walked out of my home.” Hannibal heard him, watched him, and for one brief moment, they were back in time. The bed, the chair, the conversation, the shut door before the silence that would last those long and many years. 

Hannibal moved closer, a tender look in his eyes, shimmering behind heavy eyelids. “It's head against heart., the Alpha said, plain and simple, and Will bit on the inside of his cheek as he let his lips pull up. “And would I choose my heart, I would choose you?”, he asked, a tight smile and weak, tired eyes. Hannibal stepped forward, fast, smooth, like a prowling lion. He came to stand so close, Will felt his breath on his cheeks. He closed his eyes when the Alpha leaned in, hearing words against his ear. “I am your heart, Will. I am everything,” Hannibal said, like a whisper from a dream. “I'm the blood in your veins and the breath in your lungs.” Will inhaled sharply, eyes opening to see the tiger eyes of gold and blood so close he could stumble and drown in the fire. 

“You will come back,” Hannibal said, self-assuringly, but Will caught the sliver of pain that crept behind his steady gaze. “I will be here for my next heat,” he said, trying to sound comforting, but Hannibal smiled a wide, toothy grin at his words. “I will be impressed if you last a week,” he said and Will watched the muscles of his jaw tighten under his skin. He reached out, an unconscious gesture that Will forced himself not to dwell upon, to touch that tense jawline under soft, clean-shaved skin. 

“What about you?”, he asked, swallowing against a sudden rush of tightness that crept up in his chest. Hannibal tilted his head, pushing into Will's soothing hand. “I will be here, waiting,” he said. “Suffering?”, Will asked hesitantly, his lips twitching at the ache inside his chest. Hannibal smiled lightly, bringing up his own hand to cup the side of Will's scruffy cheek. “I have always suffered without you,” he said, poetically, dramatic, and Will grunted, taking back his hand as he bared his teeth at the man before him. “Stop it. It's an honest question I need a real answer to,” he scolded, watching Hannibal's soft eyes tightening.

“It's not a declaration of romantic love, Will,” he said, his voice laced with something stern that made Will's stomach churn. “You and I have always suffered without the other. It is in our nature.” Their eyes danced, never still and never disconnected, as the two stood in silence. There was so much Will could let himself wonder, so much he could remember about them both and so much he could let himself feel. But he had forced himself to close that part of his mind, every minute of every day since he choose a life without Hannibal. His Alpha watched him, undoubtedly seeing the turmoil on his face, and ran a single finger over the outer shell of Will's ear. The brush of skin reminded him so much of the time Hannibal had gutted him, with that unbearable look of pain in his eyes. That pain had been as murdering as the knife in his belly, and now, Will felt it squeezing around his heart with sharp, dirty nails. 

He watched as Hannibal closed his eyes and leaned in, before soft lips brushed his with a firm but tender caress. A kiss, one that came from affection instead of lust. Will let Hannibal's lips lead his own into a soft dance of push and slide and search, feeling a soft tongue against his lips before he opened completely under the touch. Tongues slid together, teeth pulled gently on lips and it was painfully, unbearably moving, frail and slow and warm; hands on necks and cheeks and hair. It came from a place of pure devotion, worship, but Will pushed those thoughts into a dark corner of his mind labeled 'All things Hannibal', a corner that was never lit, and yet never had a single cobweb, or a speck of dust upon it.

Hannibal held his face in both hands when he pulled back, cupping him like a wounded bird as he smiled that barely-there smile. “That was a declaration of romantic love,” he said, and Will froze, blinked rapidly and took a sharp, stuttering breath as he felt his cheeks flush hot. Hannibal didn't step away, hands sliding down to Will neck. “You do not trust me with your heart?”, he asked, his voice thick and smooth and rich like honey, unable to shake off your skin and from your ears. Will's bottom lip trembled as he felt the warm touch of Hannibal's hands framing his skull, entangling in his hair. It was possessive, and despite everything, it felt just. “Given our history, I think our hearts would make a most destructive match,” he answered, his voice fragile in his throat as his eyes, overflowing with deep, pained longing shot back to Hannibal. Hannibal shushed him gently with a finger to his bottom lip, to still the trembling with a pressing thumb. “Now you have found your true form, that is no longer a concern,” he spoke, teeth bare with a smile while shimmering tears reflected the light in his eyes. “Bond with me,” his words were calm, but everything abut the Alpha burned bright and hot at the pleading request, “and I promise we will never hurt each other, ever again.”

Will felt one tear spilling on his cheek, followed by another, until he was blinded by a clouded vision of grief. He didn't speak, but whimpered when lips came to brush against the damp skin of his chin, his nose, his cheeks, kissing away the evidence of this torturous pain as hands stroked lightly through his hair. Will closed his eyes, feeling more drops slipping out from between his lids and he tilted his head back into cradling hands. “Will you let me touch you?”, Hannibal asked, and the warm simmer in Will's belly instantly flared hot. Yes. Yes he wanted that. He needed that, they both did. He was still in heat. They could still have this, for now.

“Touch me,” he said, winding fingers in Hannibal's sleek hair.

**

They ended up on the single bed that remained, Will on his back and Hannibal between his thighs, pushing fingers in the Omega's slick hole as he slid his wet lips over Will's painfully swollen erection. “Fuck, that feels so good,” Will croaked, knowing how he had begged the Alpha to forego anything other than good, hard penetration only yesterday. His heat really was decreasing, leaving room for more than just breeding. A thought he pushed from his mind as he bucked up into Hannibal's slick, hot mouth and cried out when soft lips brushed tight over the sensitive head.

He felt his cock hitting the tight muscles of the Alpha's throat, contracting tightly around him and taking him in deep as his tongue stroked the underside of his length. It was exactly how he liked to be touched, combined with the three fingers that pumped in and out of his dripping, clenching hole. Hannibal knew his body well, which was, again, a thought Will refused to dwell on. Instead, he concentrated on the hand that cupped his balls and rolled them gently in the palm. Everything was sliding and grinding and on the edge of something fierce as his cock slid far and deep against the silk walls and gripping muscles of Hannibal's throat. Fingers tapped his prostate, undisturbed and rapid, and without the maddening, blinding haze of lust and heat, Will found the sensation of Hannibal's touches almost unbearably pleasurable. There was a new sharp edge, a sting, a harshness poking at his nerves that seemed to intensify his senses and made him squirm and wriggle at the ecstatic torture that was nothing more than bright, hard pleasure.

Will released into the warm mouth encompassing him with strangled cry and spasming muscles, so forcefully he almost buckled off an aroused, thoroughbred Alpha, determined to swallow all of him down. The sight of his seed dripping from Hannibal's lips was enough to bring Will into a desperate frenzy, pushing Hannibal up to sit on the bed with his back against the wall. It wasn't enough. He flung himself into his lap and pushed their lips in to a fiery, feverish kiss, tasting fire, winter and sex on their tongues. Hands were sliding, fingers were gripping and Will wasted no time to lift his hips and position himself over the Alpha's cock, sinking down until there was nothing left to take. He was shaking hard enough to make the bed frame shudder, and the sight of tiger eyes blown wide and looking up at him in such warm awe, made the tears start to press behind his eyes. One strong arm was around his back and one hand on his shoulder as they started to move together. Hannibal held him steady, guiding his rolling hips and thrusting up to meet him as their bodies rocked together. Will rode him, deep and shuddering and whimpering against his mate's neck as his back was stroked by soothing hands and his ear filled with a deep, gratified purr. Will pulled back from Hannibal's shoulder so their mouths could meet and fuse as their bodies worked together towards a completion only Alpha and Omega could receive. 

Will tilted his head up and bent his spine back, hands linked around Hannibal's neck for support as he worked his hips to move the Alpha into and out of his body, stretching his insides wide and deep and brushing against his throbbing prostate as his Alpha reached for his growing erection between them and folded his large hand around it. Pushing up and down, thumb pressed under the swollen head, Hannibal pumped him with the rhythm of their thrusting bodies. The pleasure they could receive and achieve together was not a human sensation. It was always something more, crown to toe, skin to bone, head to heart to soul. Deep mud to stars. Will felt it all when he climaxed around Hannibal's cock, spilling over Hannibal's hand, writhing deep and hard on the knot that stretched inside him, bigger, larger, always too much to take and never enough, never tearing him. They were a perfect fit, unsurprisingly.

Hannibal groaned and their lips opened on each other as Will felt himself deeply filled with his Alpha's liquid release. His body was plugged and full with hot semen as his mouth was invaded by hungry licks and nips, a low growl in his ear. Will's hips didn't stop rocking until he was physically unable to move and he collapsed as dead weight against Hannibal's chest. Arms came around his back and one cheek rested on his shoulder as they sagged against the wall together.

The pleasant pulse that waved through his body took away all the sickening aches that had crept under his skin like venomous spiders when he had been in Dr. Hammings' office for over an hour. It was like a cold sweat, a tremble in his muscles, before it became this nauseating headache between his eyes. Leaving Hannibal, even outside the heat, would bring him cold, grubbing pain. Will felt a nose nuzzling under his jaw and he let his eyes close at the feeling of lips on his neck as Hannibal pulled a sheet around their joined bodies.

“We are Per mutua nexis,” Will said, after a moment of sharing each other's heat in a silence that could be called blissful, if not for the razor sharp edge around the rim. “Yes,” Hannibal said into his neck, a low vibration brewing under his chest. In this moment, he was happy. Will knew it, he felt it and he envied him for it. He buried his nose into the Alpha's hair. If only he had presented the moment they had met, maybe...

“And if the choice was mine alone, we would be a bonded Per mutua nexis pair,” Hannibal hummed, nose nudging against his gland. Will pulled back and raised his head to lock eyes with his Alpha. “It's not,” he said, letting Hannibal's soft, golden gaze brush over him before he closed his eyes and sagged back against the comfortable chest.

“What happens when one of us dies?”, Will asked after another beat of skin on skin, breathing in harmony. His voice was quiet as he kept his nose against Hannibal's collarbone to avoid showing anything more than curiosity. Hannibal inhaled deeply before he answered and Will felt his chest expanding, and heard a rush of air entering the Alpha's nostrils. “Right now, the other would perish, living an empty, meaningless and shortened life filled with an incurable ache. Alphas and Omegas can exist without their mate, but it is little more than that.” Strong arms tightened around him as Will released an unsteady breath.

“Bit dramatic,” he said, finally opening his eyes to give Hannibal an unimpressed look that didn't nearly match how he felt. Hannibal continued, undisturbed. “Bonded, our life span would increase quite considerably and when one of us eventually dies, the other would naturally drift into their own death, shortly after,” the Alpha sighed against Will's temple. “It is God's poetry.” Will swallowed hard against the cold, dark water that flowed down his warm spine and forced himself not to clench around Hannibal. “It's very deranged,” he objected through his tight throat as Hannibal hummed into his ear. “It's beautiful, like swans. They choose one mate and stay together for the rest of their lives. If one of them dies, the only thing the other can do is lie down and wait for their own death.”

Will frowned deep, whipping his head to the side to squint at his Alpha. “Swans don't do that,” he said with indignity before meeting with the longing gaze from Hannibal. “It is what I will do, would you die before I do,” he said, and Will blinked, turning his head back with red heat on his cheeks as he ignored a deep, hot flutter scratching at him from inside his belly. “Can't you just find a new mate?”, he mumbled awkwardly, pushing through the sudden hoarseness coating his voice. Hannibal stiffened against him at the suggestion and Will knew exactly why when he, too, felt the beast in him turning his insides in disgust.

“We are Per mutua nexis, Will. You can only settle for a better mate,” Hannibal said, lips no longer at his ear. Despite everything he felt was right, he turned back his head to chase after that touch and pressed his nose alongside his Alpha. “Which doesn't exist,” he whispered, remembering. Hannibal leaned closer, pressing their lips into a soft kiss as his hips simultaneously pushed up and close into Will who instantly felt his thighs trembling as he squeezed around the cock buried inside. “Exactly,” Hannibal hissed before he stuttered his hips up and brought them both another round of building and collapsing pleasure in their guts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh I so hope you guys like this chapter, there is something brewing in the story and it makes me a little nervous! You have all been outrageously generous with me and I am over the moon with all the support and love and time you wonderful Fannibals spend on reading this (PLUS time to write a comment), I cannot tell you how grateful I am!  
> I did the outline for the rest of the story and it is definitely not over soon, there are still some things I like to have worked out between these stubborn fluffy wolfmen! All my love and thank you so much for reading and sticking by me! <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Promise me you will return to me, Will,” Hannibal said, an urgency in his voice that yanked sickeningly on Will's insides. The lock turned again, an audible click. Will looked at Hannibal and hoped the tremble of his lips didn't show when he said, “I owe it to more than just myself to try and find out if I can bare life without you.”

Everything was different. 

Will's eyelids fluttered open, fighting off the rosy, peaceful slumber he was under, and the realization was immediate. He stiffened and sat himself upright, away from the warmth that surrounded his bare skin. He felt the stirring of the man in his embrace as he slid himself off the deflated Alpha knot that was still snug inside his body, leaving his insides clinging to nothing but emptiness. The man before him twitched, uncomfortable with cool air against warmed skin and Will looked up to see Hannibal's eyes open, alert, amber and brown, but without the rim of run-out blood he had grown so familiar with. No more tiger eyes of liquid gold. Instead, a bare circle of earthy colors stared back at him. No more cocoon of heat and skin and desperate need, explored with teeth and claws and warning growls. Their gaze lingered on the other as Hannibal sat up straight against the wall, and Will's bare body leaned backwards on the bed. He felt it. Everything he had grown unfamiliar with the last few days. He felt the cold. He felt the hunger. The world around him was suddenly hard and bright, a violation to his senses. It was... as it always had been. Will Graham, normal.

“My heat is over,” he said, stunned by the naked, vulnerable feeling that crept under his skin, and he scrambled for a blanket to wrap around his bare body, half an eye on the red dot of the ceiling camera. Hannibal moved towards him on the bed with hands on the mattress, his face bloodless under his skin. “Yes,” he confirmed breathlessly, his tone of voice and expression unidentifiable as he looked at Will with human eyes that almost looked cold compared to the orange, wild glow Will had gotten used to. He wondered what Hannibal saw changed in him, and if the Alpha, too, could tell by the color of Will's eyes and the lack of blood beneath his skin, that it was the truth. Will looked at his mate, unblinking, and saw that the previous golden glow that had warmed him, now hidden below the surface of Hannibal's skin, leaving him looking paler, tired. Will felt the immediate desire to touch the sharp bone of Hannibal's cheek and see if he felt as chilling as he appeared, his lips a deeper shade of purple. But he didn't touch him. He turned away instead. 

He was himself again. No more heat in his loins, no haze before his eyes, no raging beast beneath his chest. Instead, he now felt that same beast stomping behind the closed doors to the attic of his mind, present, but no longer intruding. Once again, Will Graham was the master of his own being. The man with the dogs, the boat, the family. That was him. Will blinked into the silence that fell over the room and looked at his familiar pale feet, peeking from beneath the sheets. He noticed his nails were getting long. They needed cutting. It was a casual observation, but one for which there had been no room, mere hours ago.

He pulled his blanket tighter, bringing it close against his throat, hands twitching with tremor, and he looked at Hannibal beside him. He was there. He was Hannibal. Will's eyes slid carefully across the sharp angles of his features and the ashen tones of his sleek hair. He knew that man, from the curve of his fingers, to the taste of his lips, to the scent of his skin as it shimmered with sweat. He also knew the merciless heart that beat beneath the soft hair on his chest, the skillful way those digits curled around a knife or a saw, the screaming and slicing agony within them both as they lived and breathed to cherish, nurture, betray and destroy the other.

The feelings that accompanied him now, when he looked at Hannibal were pain, the real, slicing anger of betrayal, and a deep, deep longing to be part of every single inch of him. That last realization was one that made Will shrink further into his sheets, as he swallowed against his dry throat and stared at his unkempt toenails. Those feelings, they weren't new, they weren't different than they had been before, but this time he recognized them for what they were. Never before had he dared to identify the heat in his belly when he thought of his old friend and enemy, Hannibal Lecter, as more than resentment grown from deceit. Honest instinct, Hannibal had called it. He had told him that being an Omega would bare hidden desires, expose the layers of his mind and make him see himself with honest eyes, and now, Will understood. All these years he had tried to hide any form of undesired want and need behind his anger and his guilt. He couldn't think of him that way. Not his doctor, not his friend, not a man, not the devil. Not someone other than his wife. But despite the pain being there still, after all they had been through, he felt that deep desire had now created a room for itself, settled, and stayed.

“I...,” Will stammered, flickering restless eyes to Hannibal and back to the room. “Will,” the warm voice of his mate curled around his name, smooth but urgent. Will felt him moving closer as he looked up to meet amber eyes, open and bare behind the shimmer of earthly colors. Oh yes, he had always ached for the Alpha, long before he had presented Omega. But he was still Will, with his choices and memories and morals, his family and his home. And Hannibal, he was still the man that made him wake up in terror from a horrific memory, presented back to him in his dreams. He had chosen differently, many years ago, and he could still choose differently. He could choose to be that man with the family and the dogs and the boat. He could look at Hannibal, remember the knife in his gut, the bone saw on his skull, Abigail's ear in the sink, and he knew he would have to give everything to try and walk away. The thought alone caused something deep inside to shatter as the Omega in the attic howled unhappily and the human within him punched a hole through the wall of his mind. 

“I have to leave,” Will said, his voice tight and his words choked. Hannibal leaned closer, placing one hand on his shoulder. “Will, listen...,” he said, pulling his Omega in with a warm, pleading gaze that made Will want to fall forward and drown a sweet death in amber liquid. He turned his head, away from the open stare. “I have to. Hannibal, I have to,” he heard himself whimpering and he watched steady eyes growing restless as Hannibal leaned towards him, taking hold of his upper arm. “You can't stay away for long,” he said, as much a plea as a command. “Will, you can't...” But Will placed a hand on Hannibal's to stop what he already knew was coming. “I can't stay here with you,” he said, trying for a rueful smile that became a grimace as Hannibal pressed his lips into a tight, hard line. “You won't allow yourself,” he said, darkened hazel eyes deep on Will, “but you can.”

Will huffed, pulling away from Hannibal's intense stare as he fought angrily against the grief that boiled behind his eyes. “How could anyone sanely choose this?”, he snapped, flicking his eyes hard on Hannibal to emphasize 'this'. Hannibal looked at him, his face as unreadable as only he could manage. “I'm not asking you to choose sanely. Only truthfully,” he said, body unmoving, but his pain evident on every pore.

Will shuffled across the bed and reached for the first prison jumpsuit he could find. It smelled like Hannibal, but he pulled it on anyway, underwear foregone. “I want the control over my life back,” he croaked, raising his voice involuntarily as he zipped the gray material over his chest. Hannibal rose himself up, sliding gracefully from the bed, stark naked. “When did you lose it, Will?”, he asked, reaching for the remaining jump suit which could only belong to the Omega. “Or should I ask you when you felt you had it?”, Hannibal said, a hint of that upper-class snobbishness Will remembered, as the Alpha dressed himself, eyes never leaving his mate. 

The Omega looked back and moved his lips in a silent stutter, unable to decide on an answer to the question which would be both desirable and truthful, as Hannibal made his way towards him. His eyes were almost yellow under the fluorescent light, and his hand was cool when he placed it against Will's cheek. “You want to go back to your normal life with normal people, doing your normal things. And every single one of those polite days makes you crumble down a little further, until there is nothing left of Will Graham,” his voice was hushed, but Will caught every words effortlessly. “The only control you have there, is that you choose to be defeated.”

Will felt a hard, biting punch behind his eyes as he looked into Hannibal's face, pale from the absence of sunlight for years and years, and he wished he could turn away, or laugh, or push. He wished with all his might, that he could tell him he was wrong. Hannibal pressed his lips in that barely-there smile that was a peek behind the curtain of that endless depth behind the mask of his person suit. “You were born for something much greater,” he said, a spoken whisper. “You were born for my world, where everything is beauty and nothing is limitation.” Will felt his bottom lip quivering as Hannibal brushed his chin with his fingers. “You were born for me.” The words were not more than a light whisper, but Will felt himself trembling at the tangible desire that laced through every single one. A thumb stroked his cheekbone, hard behind soft flesh.

“Hannibal,” he said, his voice cracking as the rest of his sentence faded into nothing and he bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from breaking under those amber eyes. They moved closer, breathing the same air as their noses brushed. “Promise me one thing,” Hannibal said, his voice gentle, but with a hint of sternness as he showed a sliver of teeth from between his lips. “Stay close and come back to me when it starts to hurt,” lips brushed against Will's cheek, whose eyelids fluttered at the contact. “Don't be brave. Come back to me when you're in pain.” Hannibal's eyes flickered down to Will's mouth just before their lips brushed. It was soft and dry and barely there. “Promise me, Will,” Hannibal said against his mouth before Will pressed them firmer together.

“I'm not making any promises I don't fully understand,” Will breathed between their kisses, torn in his Alpha's arms as he let their lips press together one last time before pulling and stepping back, away from Hannibal. He heard the lock of the cell door being turned, and both him and Hannibal jerked their heads in the direction of the cold, metallic noise. News spread inside this prison like hot, hot fire, and Will would not at all be surprised if Alana already knew about his ended heat from the guard in the control room.

“Promise me you will return to me, Will,” Hannibal said, an urgency in his voice that yanked sickeningly on Will's insides. The lock turned again, an audible click. Will looked at Hannibal and hoped the tremble of his lips didn't show when he said, “I owe it to more than just myself to try and find out if I can bare life without you.” 

Without another word between them, Will was escorted from the prison cell. He saw Hannibal restrained, emptiness in those amber eyes, but he didn't miss the flash of fangs when Alana placed a hand between Will's shoulders to lead him out the door.

**

Will stepped into Alana's office, wearing jeans and a gray jumper one of the staff members had been kind enough to collect from the suitcase in his abandoned hotel room. He remembered having been in that room, remembered the suitcase he had placed beside the made bed, but beyond that the memories and outlines of his days in pre-heat were shapeless in his mind. Alana took her place behind the desk and the other chair, the one that had held Jack Crawford during his first visit, now showed Dr. Hammings, perched up and smiling with a notebook on his lap.

“Four days of heat, a perfectly average score,” he said, as if to congratulate Will with the achievement. Will took the last remaining seat beside the doctor and flashed him a humorless, empty stare. “Lovely,” he spoke impassively, his vacant exterior a shield for the hot spark of irritation he felt scratching and scraping against his insides. There was that ill ache against his nerves, broken nails against sensitive skin, a sickening itch he couldn't reach. Will felt a headache coming on.

“Of course, if we start counting the heat from the moment you presented, it actually lasted...,” Dr. Hammings rattled on, unfazed by the pale and frosty Omega beside him. Alana, however, cleared her throat with an eye on the doctor, and the sentence died down. “Will,” she said, business-like with a soft, furry edge, “now that your heat is over, there are some legal matters that need to be discussed.” She kept her voice soft and clear, her sky blue eyes straight on his, but this time it was Dr. Hammings who cleared his throat and ripped away her gaze and concentration. Alana sighed as she exchanged a quick look with the older man across from her. “But Dr Hammings has assured me that, for today, it's best we solely focus on discussing and monitoring your mental and physical health.” She penned a quick scrabble on her notepad before she smiled pitifully at him and leaned closer over the desk, folding her hands together. “How are you feeling, Will?”

Will blinked, caught both pairs of blue eyes and felt himself scrutinized as Alana and Dr. Hammings both adjusted their posture to stare at him with calculating, searching stares. Being the focal point of the room was something he had always resented, but the little gear inside his chest that wound tight and tight and tighter caused him, instead of lowering his eyes to his knees, to snap at the two openly undressing his skull. “I'm fine,” he said curtly. “It's been five minutes.” He tightened his lips and eyed them both defiantly from under his damp curls.

“Separation from an unbonded mate after heat can have immediate consequences for your physical and emotional well-being, Mr. Graham,” Dr. Hammings said. “The stronger the connection...,” he waved his hand, as if the rest of the words would fall out of his sleeve that way. “Enfin, are you currently under emotional distress concerning Dr. Lecter?” He leaned forward and placed a hand on Will's armchair, as if to create a more friendly environment for him. Will blinked rapidly as he looked from the doctor's prying eyes to Alana, who stiffly tapped her pen to her bottom lip. “I think I can speak for Will and say we are all under emotional distress concerning Dr. Lecter,” she answered, raising a sharp eyebrow at Dr. Hammings as Will fidgeted with a loose thread on his sweater. 

Dr. Hammings gave Alana a disgruntled look she chose to ignore, before he sat back into his chair, crossed his legs and turned back to the agitable Omega beside him. “I am sorry to tell you this, Mr. Graham, but even though your heat has ended, I have to urge you not to return home to your family immediately,” he said, squinting his eyes at Will as if expecting a certain hissy fit. Will breathed steadily, the air only breaching the shallow part of his lungs as he stared at the noses of his brown, worn-down shoes. Home. Family. Those terms had never ceased to be abstract in his mind, unable to take footing. Now, he failed to even find the room they had taken up within him, overshadowed by liquid gold that stuck and dripped from every wall. 

He wasn't quite ready yet, to go home. “Fine,” he agreed dispassionately, teeth pressed together behind his lips as he watched the doctor and Alana quickly crossing eyes with each other. “Yes, well...,” Dr. Hammings hesitated, unsure of where to continue after the unexpected reaction. “It is just too much of a risk, one we're not willing to take,” the doctor, lost in his own unfit script, continued. “We need to monitor the situation, see how you respond without your Alpha.” Will's nostrils trembled at that singular word, which went unnoticed by the doctor. “If all goes well in the first week, we can certainly discuss...,” he continued, but Will shifted impatiently on his chair, feeling his skin pulling too tight over his bones. “I know. I know. It's fine,” he interrupted with rushing, restless hands as the continued stammering of Dr. Hammings rubbed against him like a rash. He pulled at the fabric of his sweater, feeling it scalding too hot against his body. It was chafing his skin. It just wasn't right.

“We can certainly book a flight for your wife Molly to meet you here,” Alana offered, quick to try and ease the flare of irritation that showed in the Omega's eyes. Will grimaced at the kind offer, picturing his Molly, sweet, gentle, hugging him, crying, clinging, telling him it would all be alright. Taking care of him, like she always did. The idea made his shoulders twitch from the cold shuddering that pinched at him beneath his skin, followed by remorse over his own, inexcusable reaction to the idea. He loved Molly. He loved her while the Omega in him bared his teeth. It is beyond me, Will, he remembered Hannibal's words. Be sure not to smell like her when you come to see me. Seeing her now, here, today, it wasn't safe. Not yet. In a week, he assured the man inside him, the one with the dogs and the boat and the family, in a week he would go home to his wife.

“Thank you,” he said quickly. “But we'll make our own arrangements.” He blinked at a frowning Alana, “Oh, well... If you change your mind...,” she stammered, momentarily dazed by the surprising decline. “Thank you,” Will spoke again, before Alana nodded, cleared her throat and regrouped. “You should also know, I received a phone call from Jack Crawford,” she said, letting her pen balance between her fingers as she tapped it against the opened notebook. “He wants to meet with you.” Will's fingers clenched hard into his thigh. Jack. Jack wanted to meet with him? He had disappeared most entirely during Will's heat and now he, what? Hoped to talk to him about that case? That Tooth fairy case? There was little in the world Will could care less about.

He tensed, fingers playing with the loosening elastic inside his sock. “In a few days maybe... I'm...,” he mumbled, and was strengthened by Dr. Hammings who backed him with an “I agree with Mr. Graham. Anything work related will have to wait.” The voice and look that accompanied the doctor were those of a medical professional caring for a patient, and for once, Will truly was grateful for his presence. Alana didn't press any further, but fished something out of her drawer and pushed it across her desk towards him. It was a silver key, with a wooden plate on the chain. On the polished surface shone the number 27 in golden letters.

“We extended your hotel room for another week,” Alana said, plucking a card from beneath her desk and handing it to Will. A calling card. White with blue stripes, very clinical. “This is an excellent psychiatrist in the area, in case you want to talk to a professional about the past week,” she said, and Will blinked, swallowed and tried to keep his lips from stretching too far down to openly display his distaste. “I think I have seen enough psychiatrists for a lifetime,” he deadpanned, eyes tight on Alana, who met his stare, pursed her lips and nodded stiffly as if to tell him, 'fair enough'.

Dr. Hammings had lifted himself off his chair and was now circling Will like a bald eagle while carrying his brown doctor's bag. “I would like to monitor your health, Mr. Graham. If you'll allow me to do some tests,” he asked without asking, and promptly took out a stethoscope and a blood pressure pump. Will watched the doctor scandering around him as he sat in his chair and underwent cold metal on his skin. Light in his ear, one of those ice-cream stick things on his tongue and a thermometer against his forehead. All the while, Alana was watching him, contemplating, quite obviously looking for words Will hoped she wouldn't find. 

“So,” she said, as the band around his arm inflated, smiling ruefully as she unfolded her hands, showing her palms upwards. A sign of trust, vulnerability, a lure to make him feel safe. “How are you feeling, Will?” There was that familiar pity in her open face. Her blue eyes were weak with it. “It must be awful for you now, to fully understand that Hannibal is your Alpha.” It wasn't mockery, Will knew. She meant it, and said it in an attempt to comfort him. But her words were equally unwelcome either way. “His Per mutua nexis Alpha,” the doctor found it appropriate to add as he tapped the metal point of a little hammer against Will's knees. If he kicked the old man in the shin, it was completely by accident.

“I don't know what to say other than how deeply sorry I am for you,” Alana continued, her therapist voice thick as she offered him that pitiful smile. “I wouldn't wish this on anyone, let alone my dear friend.” And he was back to being her stray, her kicked little puppy. A slave to his biology and a martyr in Hannibal's clutches. Poor, victimized Will, the little lamb to the big bad lion. It was not at all... It wasn't like that. No one would understand it, but it wasn't like that. He just didn't know what it was. He looked from her eyes down to the stethoscope on his chest. “I have to make a phone call,” he said, ignoring her offered kindness as he shuffled on his chair. Dr. Hammings took the metal off his skin. “Your heart-rate is a little increased and so is your blood pressure, but nothing troubling,” he said, noticeably satisfied as he rested an amiable hand on Will's shoulder. “I would like to see you every day for the following week to check up on you.”

Will turned to the doctor, subtly shaking off the unwanted touch from his shoulder as he looked up into the watery blue eyes. “I'm not coming back to this place every day,” he said, feeling himself shiver at the thought of being so close, so close to Hannibal, without... “Oh, but I would definitely encourage you to come in and visit your Alpha this coming week, Mr. Graham. Maybe even seek out intimacy.” The doctor spoke casually as Will clutched his hand hard around the armrests of his chair, eyes and lips wide in confusion. “W-what?”, he stammered as he saw Alana offering him a sympathetic look from behind the desk. The doctor smiled his infuriating smile, calm and patient with a pinch of superiority. “The chances of a successful separation would certainly improve with a gentle phasing off, rather than going completely 'cold turkey'”, he spoke, air quoting the last two words and Will ground his teeth violently inside his mouth. “No one told me about this before,” he bit, confusion and anger blending perfectly on his face. The doctor sighed, nodded his head once in politeness and opened his hands. “The choice is yours, Mr. Graham, I simply feel it would be beneficial for your separation and health to ease gently into your time apart. Even a phone call could take the edge off of your symptoms.”

Will shook his head, the words and possibilities a swarm of birds around his head, cawing at him cacophonously. This wasn't how he had pictured this. He was going to come to his own, read a book, overcome the aches that arose and go back home until his next heat. He wasn't going to go back, he wasn't going to see him. “Will,” Alana's voice broke through the wall of noise inside his head. He looked up at her, seeing her leaning forward on the desk, holding another calling card between two fingers. “We can offer you all of the possibilities here. Whatever you need.” He wished he could growl at her as her lips pressed together in a pitiful pout. “You are allowed to visit and enter the cell, whenever you need to,” she spoke, handing him the card in her hand. “I've written down the number you can call to reach...”

Will took the card, shoving it straight into his pocket as he jumped up from the chair. “I have to go,”  
he said urgently, as he reached for his coat. “Mr. Graham...,” Dr. Hammings started, his doctor voice back in place, but Will reached forward to grab the key from the desk. “I really have to make that phone call,” he said, and without a second glance back, he walked out of Alana's office, down the hall, and out of the building into the first fresh air he had had in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh.....^.^  
> Love you guys so much! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone that is still with me at this point, I am forever grateful!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So now, he had time. Days of just Will. Not Hannibal's Will, nor Molly's. Just Will. He wrapped both arms in front of his face, blocking his view as he breathed into the crease of his elbow. Was he just going to exist, be, feel how much it was going to hurt? He felt a tear seeping from between his closed lids onto his cheeks, soaked up by his jacket's sleeve. He missed Hannibal. Already. He missed him with all he had to give, after mere hours of separation. It was the only thing in him, after the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts, that stuck out clearly, unfazed, undamaged. He missed his Alpha.

Will moved down the stone steps of stairs that lead into the main street below, with squinting eyes registering nothing but what was directly in front of his feet. The light was bright and the air was cool against the skin of his face, filling his cramped lungs with oxygen. Unfiltered. There were cars, bikes and people, scattered, moving seamlessly around him as he walked, walked, walked, without a moment to stop and think of where to go. He didn't realize he was crossing a road until something shining, red and massive nearly bumped his thigh, and he flinched at the honked horn close to his ear. 

But he walked on and continued walking and with every step, he felt the pull. There was a tug on his mind and a tug on his body, as real as actual hands on his skin and his brain, and it wasn't hard to figure out whose hands those were. Will looked at the concrete passing beneath his shoes, watched patches of grass go by, and one hopping, impertinent pigeon. He had needed to get out of that office, away from prying eyes and prying instruments. He knew Alana, he even knew Dr. Hammings to an extent, but their company felt like that of total strangers, unwilling and unable to understand the works of his animal brain, still very much present within him. Also, forgotten and a mystery even to him, his human one.

They had looked at him, wanting a solution, a cure, a way for him to live without his Alpha and even outside of his heat, the thought made the beast inside him stagger with outrage. He felt a sickening shudder beneath his skin, a violent pounding against his temples, the rising thrumming of the blood in his veins that screamed for one, and one alone. Will, however, the man with the family, could write himself a book of reasons why walking away was the only walking to be done. He remembered choosing a family life of quiet and endless snow to hide behind. He also remembered, more clearly than anything, the kiss Hannibal shared with him only yesterday, speaking of his feelings of romantic love. Will's lips tightened as he kicked at an empty beer can with the toe of his shoe. The powerful struggle of head and heart had begun the very moment he first crossed eyes with his mate. Now, he was unsure if those parts still even belonged to him. 

He found an abandoned bench in an abandoned park and dropped himself down as he reached inside the pocket of his coat with restless fingers, scouting for his phone. He switched on the little black device, tapping out the password and ignoring the numerous missed calls and messages that popped onto the screen, before he scrolled through the address book. The name he was looking for was easily found. Odd-looking, staring back at him so plainly, cheaply illuminated. He pressed the green button before he could stop to think. 

The phone rang only twice before she picked up, an urgency present in her voice. She sounded so familiar, like calling a childhood friend after years and years of separation. “Molly?”, he said, and heard her big sigh of relief through the speaker against his ear. “Will, oh thank God,” she said, elated and simultaneously worried, a mother's trait. “I was about to hire a dog-sitter and jump on a plane. The doctor told me you have Typhoid fever but they wouldn't let me speak to you...” Will balanced his foot on a loose branch as her voice echoed in his ear. He hadn't bothered to remember what his made-up story was supposed to be. He wasn't good with those things. “No, Molly, it's... I'm OK. I'm not sick,” he interjected as he looked up at the white clouds above his head. No matter how he would dress up the truth, damage would be done. “What happened? Are you coming home?”, Molly's voice sounded impatient, far away. What hurt him most was that it didn't hurt more, being so close and so far away from her. His Molly. His friend. His sister. His sweet, good Molly that never stopped smiling, or fighting, or trying. She was the sun where he was the moon. And where Hannibal was the dark, dark abyss. 

“I want to. I can't, I...”, he said, and closed his eyes. Inside of him was an iron thread that yanked and pulled as his skin searched and yearned for the warm touch of strong Alpha hands. Even talking to his good, dearest Molly, he could envision being back on that mattress, watching that smile around sharp, sharp teeth. “What's wrong? Tell me, please. Whatever it is, we'll...”, she rambled, worried, kind...  
He watched the clouds, and the beast within him howled defiantly at the voice on the other end of the line. He lowered his eyes to his knees as he wished simultaneously that he could see her, and not speak to her at all.

“I'm an Omega,” Will interrupted her, his voice soft but clear. He licked at his dry lips and balanced one foot on the nose of the other. The line was silent. Dead silent. He couldn't even hear a breath until Molly inhaled sharply into the horn, momentarily startling him. “You're...”, she breathed, speaking slowly against the receiver and getting stuck on the word. Will could envision her perfectly, standing in their kitchen with the phone against her ear, her eyes seeing nothing but endless void as she stared out of the window, mouth and eyes agape. “I'm an Omega,” he repeated and he heard her sigh. The sound was whole, long, ending with what sounded like a chuckle and his skin tightened hard around his body. She was relieved, he realized, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise, because he wasn't wounded, or damaged. She didn't understand, just like he hadn't, what it meant to present for an Alpha.

“You presented? You presented in prison?”, Molly asked him and Will ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth. “Something like that,” he said. He was a prick for not telling her about that letter, but he couldn't find the strength to start at the beginning of a story that seemed to have started decades ago. In his mind, he saw the golden glow of tiger eyes. “Well... I guess you have a little dog in you after all,” Molly said, a sweet attempt to lighten the heavy mood, but only breaking his heart further. “How did it happen? Did you present for someone you met there?”, she asked bravely and Will felt his throat squeezing tight under the hopeful spark that colored her gentle voice. He swallowed hard, trying not to picture her lovely face, tear-stricken and crushed. “I presented for Hannibal,” he said in a single breath, answering her honestly.

The silence returned for a moment while Will watched a cloud in the shape of a fish. “Oh. Oh wow, I... Hannibal...”, Molly stammered, and Will squeezed his eyes together hard to fight the unfair throbbing behind his temples. “I didn't know I was an Omega. Molly, I had no idea this was going to happen,” he told her, not knowing why he felt the need to clarify. Why, after all, would she think... “No, of course not, I know it is not a voluntary thing,” Molly reassured him, like he was the one who needed reassuring. “No,” he breathed, itching his arms beneath his sweater, the fabric rough on his sensitive skin.

“So, what happened? Did they keep you at the hospital wing? Treat your heat symptoms?”, Molly asked and Will felt his gut and heart dropping and shattering into a million pieces. He loved Molly because this was who she was. She was light, innocent, she was there and she trusted him to make the right decisions. Not like Hannibal, who instead always encouraged him to become the worst version of himself. She was at the other end of the spectrum. He remained silent, wondering what would happen once she knew the truth. “It must have been difficult for you, Will,” she broke the silence in misplaced sympathy. Sympathy for pain that was not his, oblivious of the pain that was. Will wished he could cry. It would have been a fitting demonstration of his affection and his guilt. But there were no tears behind his eyes to press out.

“Molly...”, he tried instead, but her voice carried over his. “What happened, Will? Why couldn't I see you?”, she asked persistently, when he simply held his breath and released. The fish cloud was now an ice cream cone. “I wasn't in the hospital wing,” he spoke slowly, his eyes squinting shut. “I was with him.” His voice was barely a whisper. His fingers brushed a scab on his collarbone under his sweater, marks of sharp teeth. “I was with Hannibal during my heat.” This time, the silence on the other end was longer and he could almost hear the frown that was undoubtedly etching deeper on her face. She was trying to understand what he meant, what else it could mean instead of what it surely sounded like. “Molly, there was no other way,” he added, his voice much flatter than he had hoped for as he looked at his fingertips. There was blood on them, drawn from the scab he had been scratching. Molly stuttered her words: “Oh. Oh, so...Did you...? So you, and him....” 

He brought his finger to his lips, tasting the blood. It was such a familiar taste on his tongue. It brought back images of teeth on lips and skin, just as her questions pulled up visions of him against the table, the bed, the wall. “I am so sorry,” he spoke almost inaudibly, into the phone. He heard her intake of breath, an indication that she realized just what he was trying to tell her. Will watched two ducks chasing each other for a crust of bread as Molly breathed into his ear. “How... how are you, now? Are you OK?”, she stuttered, concern still dominant where there could have been outrage, jealousy. Not Molly. Molly didn't expect him to have done or felt anything wrong. He ran a finger absently over his bottom lip, remembering sharp and soft kisses in the same breath. “It's complicated,” he said, and hated himself for uttering such a cliché, bullshit thing to his concerned wife. He didn't add to it, however. Instead, he was rubbing fingers over the bite mark on his thigh.

“Yeah, I believe that,” Molly said, her voice dense with obvious shock. “But your heat is over? Can you come home?” There was so much hope in the color of her tone that Will felt cold under his sweater and jacket, sitting in the bright, morning sun. “No, not for another week,” he admitted. “They want to see how things go, with me, without...”, he closed his eyes. If he inhaled deeply, he could smell a lingering trace of winter-fire on his skin. The scent made him want to weep. “I want to come and see you. I'll put Wally up with my mother, and...”, Molly spoke and Will's eyes shot back open, pulled from the hot depth of his mind. “No,” he spoke, too quick, too loud. He quickly corrected himself. “No, I don't feel like myself quite yet. I-I need some time...”, he stuttered on, wishing he could rip that feeling out of him and jump on a plane, kiss his wife, forget this ever happened. Instead, the thought made his muscles ache with tension.

“OK. OK. I completely understand,” Molly said gently and Will dug nails into his knee as she soothed him further. “Whenever you need me, I'll be there.” It was so undeserved, Will would have laughed if he remembered how. Instead, he sighed, willing away the memories of his nose pressed under his Alpha's jaw. “Oh Molly, I... Thank you,” he struggled. Across the street walked a woman with a Bloodhound on a short leash. His droopy eyes reminded him of the Basset Hound he used to have, growing up. His name was Jeff. “Are you sure you're okay? Did he... did he hurt you at all?”, Molly's voice sounded in his ear, soft and tender, like a gentle hand through his hair. Again, Will could feel those teeth sinking into his flesh, the squeezing hand around his throat, the stretching knot inside his body. “No,” he breathed hard. “No, he didn't hurt me.” She sighed in relief, and Will blinked at all the images that filled his mind, of writhing, naked flesh.

Molly swallowed audibly. “Was it... was it really awful? I mean...”, she asked, unable to push her voice past the lump in her throat. How she saw him as the wounded animal, the frightened pup in the lion's den, just like all the others did. No one saw the wolf. No one ever had, no one but Hannibal. “It's difficult to explain,” he offered her, pain tearing little holes in his words. It was difficult, that was the truth. But it was also gutwrenchingly hurtful to do so. Molly soothed him with a gentle hum that rang warm against his ear. “I'm sure it was a shock for both of you, such a sudden change,” she said and Will rested the inside of his cheeks between his teeth. There was an English bulldog across the street, sniffing under the Bloodhound's tail. “Yeah. Yeah, it was,” he said, eyes on the playful wagging of the bulgy dogs across from him. He didn't tell her Hannibal knew, Hannibal suspected, Hannibal lured him in, and he followed, without enough of a fight. Presenting was nothing he could blame himself for. Soft morning kisses on the mattress, for that he had no excuse.

“As long as you're OK, we can find a way to deal with this. We will work it out, somehow,” Molly said, assuring him, and Will closed his eyes as the animal inside him dug hard at his memories of sleek, silver hair between his fingers. “Molly, I am so sorry,” he gasped, finding the shame and the guilt within him at her sweet, optimistic words, her belief they were a team, side by side, instead of feeling the depth that had fallen between them. “Don't,” she quickly interjected. “This is nature, biology. There is nothing you could have done.” He inhaled sharply before he sighed shakily into the palm of the hand supporting his phone. Molly chuckled again, trying to ease him when she said, “You were always the rebellious kind.”

He wished he could throw his phone into the duck pond. Scream at her the things he had rebelliously done, long before her. After Hannibal. “Yeah, well...”, he mumbled instead, flexing his fingers around the device that was beginning to heat up against his ear. Molly hummed again, making him feel like a spluttering, lost toddler in his mother's embrace. Coddled, but not heard. “Luckily, we live in a time where doctors and medication don't force us to be slaves to our bodies anymore,” she said encouragingly and Will feared he would grind his teeth to the root. She didn't ask, but she assumed. How could he tell her now, that there were no pills for him? No treatment, other than to spend his heats with a dangerous inmate that also happened to have a hold on his heart. He didn't speak. He let the silence hang between them as he watched a young woman pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair around.

Molly breathed into the phone. “Look,” she said, “how about you try to come to yourself for now, call me tomorrow, or whenever you want to talk, and when you come home we will work out what our options are.” The offer was more than kind, accommodated to his every need. And Molly was ready, so ready to fight with him to fix this, to make this work, to understand. He wished he would feel relief, instead of suffocation. “Yeah, OK,” he said. “Good?”, she checked at the flatness of his tone. “Yeah. Yes, good,” he tried harder, and heard the smile in her voice when she sighed. He cleared his throat and sat himself up straight. “Thank you Molly, I-I will speak to you very soon,” he said, feeling his hot ear, the cramped feeling of his jaw as he watched the sky through the trees. The ice-cream cone was gone. Replaced shapeless clouds. “Don't worry too much,” Molly said. “Everything will turn out fine.” Her soothing tone stroked against his skin, never reaching deeper. “Bye, Molly,” Will said. “Bye, Will,” she replied.

Afterwards, as he walked back to his hotel, Will realized he hadn't asked her how she was feeling. He hadn't asked what she had been through this past week, or how Wally was doing. He also realized, he probably never had.

**

It took Will close to twenty minutes to arrive at the shabby motel room. He was greeted by a pale green door with chipped paint along the side and a large number 27 nailed right above the peephole. He buried his hands deep in the pocket of his dark brown coat, fishing out the plated key with unsteady fingers. He barely remembered arriving here, only days before today, as he looked around the parking lot behind him. The motel was a cheap, ground floor row of rooms, and his was at the far, far back. All he could recall as he took in his surroundings, was a crazed blur of painful Omega need that burning him alive from the inside out. Now, all he felt was the remains, smoking ashes, burned and curled up wallpaper in the rooms of his mind palace. He pushed the key into the lock and stepped onto the shabby, maroon carpet of a small room with a queen size bed, curtains drawn shut and his black suitcase messily pushed into the corner. That suitcase, his stuff. It felt foreign now, as he looked at the corner of a book, a sleeve of a sweater and the tube of a sock that peeked out between the opened zipper. That was his. He recognized it with his eyes, but he didn't feel like it belonged to the man he was now. Maybe too much had happened in such a short time, for him to come back to himself just yet.

He sat on the edge of the bed, dropping his body down with a long and heavy groan as he placed supportive arms behind him and dropped back his head, staring at the nicotine stained ceiling. The way here had been a blur as he wandered through the meaningless, seamless streets filled with dull, gray houses and faded family cars. He hadn't even considered the possibility of calling a cab, grateful for the air blowing at the whirl of ashes inside his skull, and the opportunity to try and clear a head that had long ago proven to be unclearable. It stung him like a venomous bee that the walk, one that should have been filled with the haunting, repeating memory of the gutwrenching phone call to his wife, had instead spread a throbbing hum inside his belly, clawing up memories of lips on his skin and a scent of burned wood that seemed permanently housed inside his nose. 

Will sighed, long, fragile, as his arms failed to hold him up, forcing him to lower his head onto the cheap, spring mattress that squeaked with every breath. He felt empty. He felt cold. He felt lost. He would have to survive here, for one week, before he would return home. One week without Molly. One week, he was still allowed to see Hannibal, speak to him. Touch him, if Dr. Hammings' advice was anything to go by. He wanted the best chance to survive his time before the next heat, but he didn't feel he could return to the cell. Not with Hannibal's claws still so deep in his back. 

So now, he had time. Days of just Will. Not Hannibal's Will, nor Molly's. Just Will. He wrapped both arms in front of his face, blocking his view as he breathed into the crease of his elbow. Was he just going to exist, be, feel how much it was going to hurt? He felt a tear seeping from between his closed lids onto his cheeks, soaked up by his jacket's sleeve. He missed Hannibal. Already. He missed him with all he had to give, after mere hours of separation. It was the only thing in him, after the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts, that stuck out clearly, unfazed, undamaged. He missed his Alpha.

Will sat up, violently rubbing at the streaks on his cheek as he yanked off his coat and flung it as far from the bed as he could manage. This, it reminded him so much of the time Hannibal had turned himself over to Jack. He cried then too, when they had all left, and he was alone inside his house. He had missed Hannibal then too, but it was easier to admit to himself when Hannibal was really gone. Now, Will felt the Omega in him, pacing in the attic. Angry, restless, searching for its mate, and he wondered where his feelings sprung from this time. How could he possibly know if the Omega wanted his Alpha, or Will wanted Hannibal.

He took a shower, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the tiles as the hot water streamed from his face to his feet. He stood there, arms braced on the wall, refusing to touch his own skin as he let his body go numb under the heat. Everything hurt, but the most vile, cruel, unbearable part of it, was that he knew this feeling. The raw ache of his skin, the tightening of his stomach, the never ending tension of crooked toes, digging against every surface. He had felt this way for many years, bearing it. He didn't remember ever feeling different. But now that he had tasted the pure, powerful bliss that was the nearness of his Alpha, that pain was like raw beans compared to an ongoing, glorious feast. He had tolerated it, but it had become intolerable. He toweled himself off, quickly and imprecise as he slid his naked body between cheap, clean white sheets that felt crisp against his skin.

He didn't have a plan. He could only wait, and feel, and if everything would go as expected, slowly perish by himself in this tiny motel room before he could try to return to the real world. He would have to survive, just until next Monday, and he would fly home, start fresh. 'I will be impressed if you last a week,' Hannibal had said, and Will swallowed at the sickening buzz under his skin, as if his body wished him to move, to search, to stop resting and find whom it needed most. Instead, he closed his eyes. “Fuck you, Hannibal,” he mumbled under his breath. He didn't know how long he would last, the pain that kneaded around his muscles already enough to make him squirm. Pain like a toothache, right on the cavity and deep into your jaw, that was what it felt like.

Bonded, it would be easier, they had said. Bonded, separation wouldn't hurt like this. But bonded, he would never, ever be able to make a place for himself without Hannibal, with his family, within his own mind. He should drink, eat, he should get dressed, the sun still out behind the curtains. Instead, he stayed where he was, watching the ceiling for fading hours, running his head past the days, the memories, the sounds and scents. He was trying to fit it all in, shape it around, find a way to make it work. What he wanted, what he felt, what he desired, it was a box of endless entangled rope, impossible to see where it starts, and how it could come undone.

He fell into slumber, exhausted from days upon days of physical and emotional havoc, and hovered behind his eyes in a state of half sleep, half alert, half dreams and half thoughts for hours and hours. When he woke up, it was dark outside, and Will sat up straight, fingers scratching wildly at his windpipe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe anymore. In his dreams, he had been alone in the woods at night, following his nose to the smell of burning wood until he found the beast he had been looking for. Large, tiger eyes, silver gray hair, prominent, sharp fangs. The beast growled at him, hunching his back with hairs rising up from its neck. Its lip curled up, its golden eyes squinted. But Will wasn't afraid. He approached the beast, raising a hand, touching the muzzle above the nose. For a moment they stared at each other, watching, curiously, until he noticed that the beast was whimpering. It was quiet, so quiet he could barely hear, but when he looked at his hand, he realized he was pushing his own nails deep into the bridge of its nose. Blood streamed down the muzzle, the beast's eyes flared red, and before he could step back, sharp fangs closed around his throat.

“Fuck,” Will wheezed, finding his breath in his tightened lungs, slowly coming to himself in the dark as he looked at his fingers. No blood. It was a dream. It had felt so fucking real. He fell on his pillow, feeling his body spasming around his ribcage as the sour pain returned to his veins. His breathing didn't steady, but stayed rapid as he swallowed and blinked at the ceiling, sweat forming a thin layer on his skin. An hour passed. Another one. He couldn't breathe. And it hurt, so bad. It was still pitch black when he lifted himself out of bed and fumbled around for his pants. His fingers reached into his pocket, finding a crumpled piece of paper before he folded his naked body back between the sheets. 

Before he allowed himself to think, if that were at all possible over the acid pain in his veins, Will took the phone on his nightstand off the receiver and held it against his ear, punching in the number on the calling card in his hand. He wanted to hang up before the call could make it through but his fingers only twitched around the horn as it rang once, twice, three time before he was greeted by a male voice. Will stuttered around his name when he said, “This is Will Graham calling for...”

“Dr. Lecter. Of course, Mr. Graham. I'll put you through,” the voice replied, and Will froze at the name spoken against his ear. Again, his fingers twitched, again he wanted to let go, end the call, make it stop. But minutes of silence pressed on, and he never moved. There was a short click, a breath, and a voice that made his skin bloom like the first rays of sun on spring flowers. 

“How is the world without me, Will?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ba Dum Tss!!  
> ....Yeah, it happened! Already! Will is in pain after less then 24 hours away from his Alpha!  
> I'm sure Hannibal has got some stuff to say to his stubborn Omega ;-)
> 
> Love you all so much for the support and love and wonderful comments and the motivation and inspiration you amazing people give me! I ow you AWE!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Betrayal, attempted murder... we bring it out in each other so naturally,” he breathed, shoulders twitching at his own words. It was the truth. That realization was why he had sent Hannibal away those years ago, and why he had to walk from him now. The Omega in the attic thrashed against the walls of his mind, making it rain a cloud of whirling sawdust behind his eyes. Hannibal didn't speak for the moment, and neither did Will. Each listened to the other breathing, heard his presence there, and it made everything that little bit easier, and that little bit more maddening.

Will's lungs opened under the gentle rumble against his ear, allowing the soothing, vital air into his increased bloodstream. He closed his eyes, pressing them shut as his fingers tightened painfully around the horn in his hand. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to scream. He wasn't going to laugh out loud from the feather-like strokes of relief that brushed against every raw, pulsing ache beneath the surface of his skin, a cool touch to the chafing burn. It was not enough, however, to quell the flames that licked and lingered deeper.

“I feel completely lost,” he croaked into the phone, resting his head against the device out of pure exhaustion. It hadn't been a full day since he left, but already his muscles felt mangled, like he had been thrown around like a rag doll within his own skin. “As do I,” Hannibal admitted from the other end, without shame, without hesitation. Will almost breathed a chuckle at the easy, familiar flow of his Alpha's voice against his glowing ear as he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Weakness never shone through in Hannibal, but Will could hear in the aura around his words that he, too, felt a strain that loosened the moment their voices met.

“And I hate myself for calling you,” Will confessed, his hand settling over his eyes as he sank into the pillow behind his back. He loathed his lack of control, restraint, but it was hard to truly feel regret now that the fist around his throat finally eased its grip. He was an addict in the throes of withdrawal. “At 4 in the morning,” Hannibal added, a smile around his lips that Will could envision before his eyes in a single heartbeat. He pressed two palms against his sockets, clenching the horn between tense fingers. “Fuck.” He hadn't even looked at the time. It hadn't mattered. But now, he felt a pinch of embarrassment at the desperation his actions surely screamed. He hadn't even been able to wait until morning. He hadn't been able to wait a full day. 

“Will...,” Hannibal said, the timbre and curve of his voice dancing a seamless curl around his name. It pulled at something inside the Omega, yanked at him, right behind his bellybutton. He shot upright on the bed, the horn pressing hard against his ear. He heard it, the tremble of a plea beneath the honey of his Alpha's voice. “Answer me honestly,” Will demanded, his voice louder, sharper, with a tinge of fear to underline his words. “Are you in pain?” The question made his own body shudder and twitch against the mattress, a reminder of the agony that still scratched within him. The thought of Hannibal, alone in his cell, constantly watched, dressed in rough cotton and bothered with offensive prison food as he curled up on his single mattress with arms around his weakened body, made Will want to lurch for the TV, anything within his reach, and hurl it out of the motel window. The urge was sudden, but it was wild.

But then, as Hannibal told him: “The pain of separation is very much a mental anguish for an Alpha.” Will felt his violent temper converting into a sharp sting of hot irritation. A mental anguish? He, Will, he was suffering like a wounded animal. The stabbing, head-splitting pulses in his joints, the nauseating burn in his belly, the wrecking flow of acid through bones and veins and nerves was a constant vibration beneath his every heartbeat. He was broken, trembling, already feeling his body breaking down and now Hannibal told him...

“You don't feel pain?”, his voice was undignified on the brink of childish, even to him. It quivered with outrage at an injustice he felt like a knife to his back, even if a hint of solace simultaneously seeped through the cracks of his mind and washed away the previous, harrowing image of his suffering Alpha. There was a pause on the other end, and when Hannibal finally did speak, it was through tightened jaws. “Do you truly believe that is what I said?”, he asked sharply and Will heard a scrape of metal against his ear. The Omega pictured his mate taking place in one of the seats at the table, and he breathed in deeply through his nose, feeling his chest expanding without trouble. 

“An Alpha's strength lies in his strength,” Hannibal told him, factually. “Physical weakness would not be beneficial to his protective nature.” Will smiled despite everything, unable to open his eyes under the pressure of sleep, pain and near-relief that seemed to weigh on his eyelids. “Whereas an Omega just needs to stay near his Alpha,” he breathed into the phone, making sure to put a cutting edge around his words as he rested against the mattress, bare under the sheets. Hannibal hummed, disapproval evident in his tone. “For safety. It is purely instinctual,” he spoke, otherwise ignoring the derisive tone in his mate's voice. “An Alpha, in turn, is designed to protect his Omega and ensure his family's wellbeing.   
I am in no position to do so here.”

Will heard the words and felt the deep wound that was uncovered by them, but lost the voice to speak in return. That one word, it was enough to make him lose his grip on his own, slippery mind. Family. He blinked and thought of Molly, Wally. He thought of Abigail, his Dad. It was foreign to him still, that term. For some reason, it would never fit around him and take the shape he had envisioned. Once, family would have made him think of a home, a wife, a flock of children, and a pack of dogs. And even as he tried to picture it in the moment, those faces in his mind were never formed, never shaped, never colored in. 

Family. At times, it reminded him of the two swans that couldn't exist without the other, roaming together from pond to pond. “Will...”, Hannibal sighed away the silence, the pain in his voice more evident now, mostly because he allowed it to peek through. “I know...”, Will muttered, grief heavy behind his eyes as he breathed hard into the phone. “We both suffer,” he said, and with those words he acknowledged the pain of his mate, however different than his own. Something they both needed as even alone, and even with divergent needs, no one would ever understand them better than the other.

“Yes,” Hannibal said into the horn, a sigh, followed by a much more intrusive: “Did you get to speak to your wife?” Will's eyes widened at the unexpected question, finally able to keep them open as he frowned at the receiver. “I thought you didn't want to hear about Molly,” he said defensively and Hannibal hummed low in his throat, a noise Will suspected was meant to mask the growl that undoubtedly rested in his Alpha's throat. “I assume you did not yet see, or touch her.” Hannibal's words carried something supercilious, but the strain that ran under his tone was deep. “I spoke to her,” Will confirmed, his voice more timid than he cared for. “She knows what is happening.” His eyes shifted uneasily through the room as he spoke, picturing his mate's dilated pupils from inside his mind.

“Does she know who you presented for?”, Hannibal asked, and even though Will could not catch it in his tone, he was certain the Alpha was on the brim of gloating. “She knows it was you,” he spoke curtly, lips pressed tight. “And she knows who you are.” Will lowered his eyes to his bare chest, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation as his heartbeat thumping louder in his throat. He wondered if Hannibal could hear it through the phone. “Is she aware of the nature of our relationship before you presented?”, Hannibal asked him, patiently, fingers right on the sore spot. Will closed his eyes. Hannibal had always seen inside his skull, as if he had succeeded in actually opening him up, that time in Italy. 

“She knows I was your patient,” The Omega said evasively, halting his free hand as it started to wander down his ribs and hastily bringing it back up to rest against his shoulder. “You never were my patient, Will,” Hannibal hummed into his ear, his voice warm with affection yet tauntingly sharp. Will's ears warmed hot at the sultry tone, just as irritation flared up in his belly. He had not been hiding anything from her. He and Hannibal, their relationship might have been strangely intimate, deep, intrusive, but they had not been lovers. It had not been an affair.

“She knows about the time you experimented on my brain as I was suffering from encephalitis. The time you framed me for your murders, and the time you slid open my belly and left me for dead on your kitchen floor.” he bit viciously against the plastic of the horn. “And let's not forget the time you tried to crack open my skull with a bone saw.” His hands started to tremble at the incomprehension and grief that washed down his body as he spoke the words and saw the visions. He remembered those time between them all so well, and it never ceased to make him double over in pure anguish and sickening mania. 

Will focused on the other end of the line as he swam inside himself, lost in the turmoil of emotions. Hannibal was there, and his breathing sounded warm and solid against his ear. “We betrayed each other, Will. You and me both,” he spoke, his voice echoing back a fraction of the agony that Will felt dripping from his brain down his throat, poisoning him. The Omega smiled into the darkness, and it hurt. 

“Betrayal, attempted murder... we bring it out in each other so naturally,” he breathed, shoulders twitching at his own words. It was the truth. That realization was why he had sent Hannibal away those years ago, and why he had to walk from him now. The Omega in the attic thrashed against the walls of his mind, making it rain a cloud of whirling sawdust behind his eyes. Hannibal didn't speak for the moment, and neither did Will. Each listened to the other breathing, heard his presence there, and it made everything that little bit easier, and that little bit more maddening. 

“I must admit, my actions regarding you around that time were not always as well-considered as I thought them to be,” Will heard his Alpha's voice through the silence, his words chosen carefully. “I was partly steered by a very unguided, very determined Alpha in me, dug out and brought forth by your presence,” he spoke almost melancholically, the moment one of rare self-reflection for the Alpha and Will sucked his bottom lip sharply through his teeth. “I hadn't presented back then...,” he replied defensively, and Hannibal hummed almost lasciviously into his ear. “But my Alpha recognized you right away. Long before even I did,” he replied, a low vibration in his throat that made the Omega's skin rise and tighten with goosebumps. “It made me push the boundaries with you, probing for the animal I suspected was dormant inside.”

Will lowered the horn to his cheek, closing his eyes as he lay breathing in the dark. Even then, they had recognized, subconsciously, what was hidden in the other. He couldn't deny it, not when he remembered it so well. He could see them clearly behind his eyes, talking in Hannibal's office or sitting at the dinner table, watching each other as they ate. Hannibal had watched him with a fire in his eyes that Will had felt as though it penetrated his skin. There had been a beast inside the monster inside the man. One that woke around the beast inside of him. Even then.

It took Will several seconds before he brought the receiver back to his lips. “You...,” he stuttered against the plastic and Hannibal breathed hard against the phone, pushing air through his nostrils. Will could almost feel the hot stream of air, as he had many times against his throat. “I saw the struggling, beautiful, caged beast inside you and it brought out the struggling, deprived beast inside me,” Hannibal said, with the melody of a poem. “We were both made for the other, but unable to fit we turned vicious.” The words curled around the Alpha's teeth in a hiss. “Starving in an ocean of bread makes an animal of the most civilized human being.”

Will pressed a hand to his eyes and felt his shoulders shaking before he laughed, loud, a fine line to sobbing. “You weren't human... I was,” he croaked as his muscles bent, pulled and shuddered on the mattress, a reflection of the wild waves inside his head. Hannibal's tone was cool silk to the raw skin around his shuddering, breakable bones. “Yet we battled and betrayed and loved each other like savages. That is what we are, Will,” Hannibal spoke, his words a caress that made Will rub his own cheek against his shoulder in search for a warm touch.

“You wanted to kill me,” Will whispered, a grimace flashing over his features as he ripped off the band-aid on an old, festering wound within his heart. A low growl rolled over the phone from the other end. “I wanted to bond with you,” Hannibal hissed and Will knew he had bared his teeth. “My Alpha was in a state of furious pandemonium, finding the perfect mate, unable to have or to attain. Which I did not fully understand until much later.” The words were bulbous with regret. Old sores were relived by both, breathing hard, fast, heartbeats elevated. Will writhed against the sheets, his skin in search for heat and touch and alleviation from the pain. His and Hannibal's. 

“You and I were both disconnected from our true nature,” Hannibal said and Will rubbed his cheek against the receiver, unconsciously following the Alpha's voice. “And just when I came to realize this, you sent me away.” Will's eyes opened. The sentence, spoken kindly, felt like frostbite against his ear. Betrayal. Hannibal felt betrayed. It hurt the Alpha, like the knife in Will's gut. Will couldn't detect it in his mate's voice, but he felt a strain inside his own belly, and knew the pain was Hannibal's. The Omega hissed a silent stream of air into his lungs, and bit hard on the inside of his cheek. He remembered Hannibal sitting by his bed, in his chair, disheveled and smelling like his own, burned flesh. His face damaged with wounds that still imprinted his skin with scars.

“And now you live your life,” Hannibal said, his voice honey, but lingering like the sting of a bee. “With that ready-made family you have adopted as your decor.” Will swallowed as he listened to the voice, filling him to the brim. “Wife, child, a job. Normality. A play you orchestrated for yourself, giving you what you never had, even if you never desired it in the first place.” Will's breath trembled in his tight throat. The sting that was dealt to him was not meant to be cruel, nor demeaning, but Hannibal was determined to drive it through to him until it emerged at the other end. And it hurt. Will wanted to let go, in that moment. He wanted to hang up the phone, pack his bags and go. He wasn't sure where he would end up, would he walk out the door of his motel room, but he knew couldn't bare any more of the pain, the crushing brick behind his Alpha's words.

“Hannibal,” he whispered into the horn, pressing his whole self as close as he could to the device. “Stop.” It was a plea that escaped him wholeheartedly, before he could reconsider. “Stop putting your thoughts in my head.” His lips brushed against the receiver, open, moist, soft and searching, and the slight quiver in the drawn breath on the other end made him wonder if Hannibal felt it, as if spoken against his own lips. His breathing was fast, his chest shone with sweat and his fingers trembled as they stroked against the horn. “I sent you away because all we had left to give each other was pain.” Tears danced along the rim of his eyes, clinging to the edge. “I needed it to stop. I needed something else,” he quivered, weakness and desperation open in his words.

“And your Omega has found it for you,” Hannibal rumbled against his ear and Will clenched his jaw tight, pushing back the raw pain that clawed up his throat. “No. Stop,” he demanded again. “Don't tell me...” Will's voice faltered as he swallowed around a lump. “I want to be certain, for once, about what thoughts are mine,” he said, brokenly nuzzling along the plastic. “I need to know what needs and wishes and ideas come from my own mind.” His naked body slid against the thin sheets as he moved his legs, his thighs meeting. “All my life I have been walking the fine line between my own head and those of murderers, hunters... Cannibals. Blending and bleeding and seeping into my mind until I could no longer keep out the pieces that had sunken into me.” 

He was whispering still, his eyes closed and his lashes wet, his plump lips touching the phone, Hannibal breathing into his ear. “And now?”, the Alpha asked him, voice husk and Will's body arched with the tingle that it danced down his spine. “Now what?”, he replied, strained and out of breath.  
“Those pieces, are they still there?”, the voice asked. Will paused. Suddenly, silence pressed heavy on his ears, feeling close to painful, and his eyes widened. If his own mind stopped pumping around the endless flashes of color and sound for one brief second, there was nothing but the low rumble of his Omega in the attic. 

He couldn't remember the day he had been without them, the voices he had allowed to crawl into his head, disturbing him with images, thoughts, degradation that became his own. The people that had inhabited him as he tried to understand their crimes. But truthfully, no, he hadn't heard them, not since those days in heat. The moment his heat died down, an overflow of thoughts and emotions had returned and spilled inside from an open faucet, but other presences, other voices, they hadn't returned. “No,” he said, dazed by the realization. “It's me and the Omega.” Will remained motionless as Hannibal chuckled into his ear, tired but warm. “The beast in you has chased away the barnacles,” he spoke, and Will felt his Omega stomping around inside him with heavy paws, huffing hot from the nose. “Never a better opportunity to discover what it is you both want.”

Will smiled weakly around parted lips, his nose clogged from the tears that seemed almost ready now to burst forward. “I know what my Omega wants,” he spoke, a crack in his voice, “but I want to understand what Will Graham wants. The man. Not the beast. No one else.” He blinked, his nails running blunt against the horn. “I need to know what kind of man is left of me.” His words trembled harder as his sentence flowed wilder and his fingers curled harder around the horn, as if to try and touch what was on the line. “And when you do, you will be astounded at what you find,” Hannibal breathed and it opened up every shriveled vein beneath Will's skin. “You are not a just a man.” Will could hear the smile in his voice. “You are not a normal man, Will.”

Will's eyes shut tight as he bit his lip and lowered his head until his chin touched his chest, allowing Hannibal's words to flow through him like waves of wild water, coming from within himself. “That beast you think you merely host inside of you, is very much a part of that man you are searching for. Allow yourself to collide with him and you will find yourself whole. The true Will Graham.” The Alpha purred intimately against his skin, and Will felt the rumble within his own chest. “He is most magnificent.”

**

Will stared at the yellow ceiling for hours after he had hung up, touching on every bit of their conversation and repeating it inside his head over and over and over, as the ache in him returned harder, harder than before. He finally got up when the sun was already high, peeking over the rail of his drawn curtains and hoisted himself into the same clothes he had worn yesterday, still wrinkled and damp on the floor beside his bed. When he picked up his mobile phone, it alerted him of a text message from Molly, a missed call from Alana and another text message, also from Alana. He didn't open them. He shoved the device in his pocket, reached for his coat and walked out the door instead.

The wind made the air feel cold, but his brown coat was warm enough to protect his skin from any chills. He bought himself a late breakfast, or an early lunch, when he passed a bakery. The coffee was stale and the croissants were greasy, but it was heaven compared to any of the food he was given in prison. He did not sit down to eat, however, but continued walking in a hurried pace, eyes unobservant of his surroundings. He had no plan, nowhere to go, but he needed the fresh air and a place that didn't hold the memory of Hannibal. Not the man, nor his voice.

He crossed a street, passed a park, took a turn left and wandered to the right, moving and moving with his eyes to his feet and his hands in his pocket. Away from everything, just for a moment. It could have been hours of walking in circles, right and left or even a firm u-turn when his feet got tired and his head had stopped screeching like a flock of seagulls. He lowered himself onto an empty park bench and after a deep breath, pulled his phone from his pocket and flipped through the screens. Molly wanted to know how he was feeling, and hoped to speak to him today. He would have to give her a call later, discuss nothing new. Tonight, maybe. Alana asked him how he was doing, urged him to come by for a medical examination and invited him over for dinner at her house in the same breath. Will huffed out loud at the the idea. There was only one answer to all three questions, and it was no. He wasn't going to go back to the prison, so near the source of the ache that filled him, and he wasn't going to play the polite dinner guest to be dissected by the woman that viewed him as incompetent. He wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

He tucked away his phone and he finally looked up at his surroundings. Green. He saw the trees, the grass, a handful of people on their way, and something more. His skin tightened under his coat and he cursed inwardly at the view he had chosen for himself. Above the swaying treetops peeked the roof of Baltimore State Hospital. “Fuck,” he snorted pitifully and shook his head at the sight. Of all places he could have wandered, he ended up here. 

“You're Will Graham,” a soft voice suddenly spoke from behind him and Will's head shot up, twisting his body to see who had recognized him. Behind the bench stood a man with short, dark hair and a pale face. His eyes were narrowed, evasive, and a distinctive scar ran from his left lip to his left nostril. The man eyed him, sharp and intrusively as he seemed to suck in every detail of Will's face. “Can I help you?”, Will asked him, leaned backwards at the uneasiness that crept over him under the stare of the odd man. “You are Will Graham,” he repeated and Will quickly got up from the bench, turning himself to face the stranger.

“I am,” he said, a frown deep on his forehead as the eyes that Will could now identify as blue flickered briefly to the prison behind Will's back. “You were in there,” the man said. “With him.” Will felt himself grown cold under the vicious blue eyes and blinked rapidly as he bit down on his teeth. Him, he'd said. You were in there with him. “How do you know?”, he quickly fired, sweat simmering on his back beneath his shirt. Was this public knowledge? Had it been published already? His mind zoomed around Freddy Lounds for a brief second. The man stood unmoving, apart from the nervous twitch around his right eye. “You left,” he said, ignoring Will's question, his voice breakable but his eyes shooting short bursts of ice-cold fury. 

Will crossed his arms over his chest, an unpleasant sensation crawling up his legs, and shoulders as he watched the stuttering stranger. “Who are you?”, he asked, his tone defiant as he squinted his eyes. The man froze, and Will felt cold when he looked him dead in the eye, seeing nothing but a face of stone. He watched the stranger's body tense at the question, before he started to arch his neck, twitching, as if working out a strain in his muscles. The man straightened himself, clenched his muscles and Will watched the ice in him die away by a sudden, furious fire. A transformation that left Will frozen to the spot as the man stepped closer, separating them only by the bench as he leaned forward, close to Will's ear. The voice that came out of his mouth was low, raspy, different and Will's eyes widened as he felt a scrap of teeth against his ear shell. “I am the great red Dragon.”

It was a whisper, almost, but it was chilling like ice down the back of his neck, and Will jumped backwards from the touch and the sound. As quickly as it happened, so quickly the stranger stepped back, eyes shifting nervously before he pulled up his hood and moved away, walking quickly, fluently, until he disappeared from sight. Will watched him go, eyes on the black hood, and knew the stranger was not just a madman. Will was an empath, still, and the tingling of his ear-shell made him shudder with the knowledge that the stranger had little human left in him. 

But he was gone, now, and the pain that coiled in Will's body was still enough to make him weep, so the odd stranger was pushed from his mind, defeated by the Omega that howled and clawed at him for his Alpha. He had seen many disturbed people in his life. He had helped them, understood them, caught them and killed them, but for once, he did not have the time to focus on anyone but himself. He started walking, away from the hospital. Away from that place. Determined, with his back towards the building, he walked, and again, every step was like one through streaming water. But he balled his hands inside his pockets, and kept on moving. He might have a beast in him, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to try and tame it into submission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh Will! Will, Will, Willy, Will." Is all I have to say to that ;-)  
> Ohh guyss, I worked really hard to get this up in time, with Halloween and everything going on this week, so I hope I didn't get sloppy or messy and that you all enjoyed the chapter! Thank you all so much for your love and support and amazing comments that I show to random strangers on the street! "Look! Read this! It's about me and my fanfic! Look!"  
> All my love!!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepperoni. It was his favorite kind of pizza. Will flipped through the channels of the small TV on the dresser as he ate a slice out of the cardboard box and sipped beer from a six-pack of cans he had picked up at a local deli. He briefly wondered, as he bit into the crunchy dough, if Hannibal had ever tasted a greasy, take-out pizza, and if so, if he had enjoyed it as much as Will was doing now. He huffed into his can, his fourth and almost empty, as he tried to picture his impeccably dressed Alpha biting into a slice. Those lips shining with grease and a string of cheese hanging from his luscious mouth. He chuckled when the ridiculous image was followed by Hannibal's perfect dining-table, decorated with the flowers and the skulls, the wine. He pictured the plates made up perfectly, warm fig and goat cheese salad, an expertly cut quarter of pomegranate and three drips of a sauce as bright and red as fresh flowing blood. And in the middle, a slice of cheesy, dripping, take-out pepperoni pizza. Will snorted so loud, beer seeped back over his lips.

“Did you get _any_ sleep last night?”, Molly asked, voice crackling with the bad reception that seemed to swarm around the motel like a cloud of insects. Will had been standing in front of the mirror on the wall above the dresser, when the buzzing of his phone had torn him away from his own, sunken eyes. “Not much,” he said, remembering the dream, and then the phone call. He twitched his lips, disgruntled when the tips of his ears heated with the memory of Hannibal's husky voice against his ear, so clear in his mind it was like pressing play on a recorder. He could tell her about it, that phone call, the dream. Will pushed back his cuticles with blunt fingernails. There was no need for secrecy, was there? 

But none of the words would stick to his tongue and form into a proper sentence. He said nothing.

“Neither did I,” Molly breathed, and Will could hear the distant clanging of dishes in the background. “I kept thinking about what you must have been through these past days, and how lonely you must have felt.” Will's eyes met his own again in the mirror. The skin around his sockets was a grayish purple and the sharp contrast between his dark scruff and his pale skin made him look ill. He stepped closer to his own image and watched the whites of his eyes shimmer pink with broken blood vessels, caused by sleep and pain and the constant pounding of thoughts and memories against the walls of his skull. Molly sighed pitifully when he remained silent. “I know this whole situation is purely biological and there's no one to blame for it, but...,” she hesitated. Will could see the hint of a bruise peeping out from beneath the collar of his shirt. There were many more of those, all neatly covered up beneath the fabric of his clothes. “I hate that this happened to you,” Molly said, her pain for him almost tangible as she sniffled against the horn, and Will quickly pulled the collar higher around his neck.

“Molly,” he said, trying to keep his voice light as his eyes shifted shamefully from his own gaze, squinting critically at him from behind the glass. “Please don't worry about me.” He tried to sound assuring, soothing, as he wiped a damp palm on his jeans. There was a tremor in his voice he hoped she wouldn't detect. “It was... I barely remember any of it.”And that was a lie. His first true, proper lie. Before, it had always been bent truths, the twist of a detail, or just unspoken information. This was not that. He had lied to his wife. 

His eyes shot back to himself and he watched his cheeks flush a deep crimson red, before he quickly turned away. Molly sighed at the other end, and he could feel the tension she released at his confession, as it crept right into his own shoulders. “Oh God.” She moaned against the horn. “That is..wow, really?”, and what was he to tell her? She was his wife, his home, his future. Could he say he had spent days and night in a frenzy of sex and sleep and touches, whispers, soft and wild kisses, fingers in hair and moans against ears? And should he tell her it was undeniable that it had made every fiber of Will Graham, the Omega and the man, tremble with a wild, untameable ecstasy? 

Will rubbed a miserable hand over his eyes. There had always been missing pieces in their relationship regarding Hannibal, and he wouldn't change that now. He couldn't. Accountable for his actions or not, never would he want to answer a question about the two of them. What it had been like, how it had felt for him, what they had done. It was better like this, for the both of them. “I was in a complete haze throughout my heat,” he said instead, twisting a button on his shirt between his fingers. Not a whole lie, half-truths. Again, Molly sighed, a hum in her sweet throat. “That is such a relief.”

He sat himself down on the bed, feeling his skin growing cold from the perspiration drying under his clothes. “I was about to order pizza,” he murmured, unsure of how to continue and wishing to steer their conversation to easier waters. He had asked her about the dogs, he had asked about Wally, even his mother-in-law had made an appearance in the conversation, and he was proud to have remembered this time. He had remembered to show that he cared. “Must be nice to eat something besides prison food,” Molly said and Will's mind quickly rattled through the memories. The sandwiches, the conversation about the cook, the soup, the way the table shook when... “Yeah. You could say that,” he answered, pressing his eyes shut tight as he lowered himself backwards on the mattress, trying to free his head of the image of his naked back against the rocking table-top.

“Oh, your doctor called me today.” Molly shattered the heated mist behind his eyes and it quickly drifted away, lingering just outside the frame of his mind. Will frowned over his squinting eyes. “My doctor?”, he asked, confused. “Yes, Dr. Hammings? He's from the prison,” Molly explained and Will's eyes widened before he curled a lip over his teeth. Slimy bastard. He hadn't gotten what he wanted, an all access pass to Will's ins and outs, and now he had gone behind his back to get it. Desperate to claim his prized guinea pigs for his own, Will suspected. “Yeah, yeah, I know him,” he said, tugging at a loose thread on his sleeve. He did not want to go back there, to that building. He feared what it would do to him, and what it would make him do. “He told me you are refusing medical checkups and he is worried about you,” Molly spoke and Will clenched his teeth, swallowing down the irritation he felt boiling up his throat as his wife continued. “If they can't monitor your health and you get sick, going home could become much more complicated.”

His nostrils twitched. It was all nonsense, these checkups. That information would only be used as page-fillers for a best-seller Dr. Hammings was undoubtedly working on. Will didn't want any more tests, or any more questions. He wanted back the control over his body and his brain, and he surely understood himself better than any prying medical man ever could. He was fine. It hurt, yes, but he was fine. “Molly, this guy is not worried, he just.,” he tried and huffed silently when his wife wasn't hearing him. “Well, _I'm_ worried,” she interjected. “I need you home, Will, but more than that I need you healthy.” Her voice had that edge to it, concern, a tinge of panic. “I _am_ healthy. Molly, I'm fine,” he tried, but her sharp sigh made his shoulder twitch with the defeat he knew was inevitable. “Will,” she said sternly.

“Yes, alright. I'll stop by tomorrow,” he replied, rolling on his side and he heard the warmth seeping back into her voice as she breathed against the phone. “Thank you.”

**

Pepperoni. It was his favorite kind of pizza. Will flipped through the channels of the small TV on the dresser as he ate a slice out of the cardboard box and sipped beer from a six-pack of cans he had picked up at a local deli. He briefly wondered, as he bit into the crunchy dough, if Hannibal had ever tasted a greasy, take-out pizza, and if so, if he had enjoyed it as much as Will was doing now. He huffed into his can, his fourth and almost empty, as he tried to picture his impeccably dressed Alpha biting into a slice. Those lips shining with grease and a string of cheese hanging from his luscious mouth. He chuckled when the ridiculous image was followed by Hannibal's perfect dining-table, decorated with the flowers and the skulls, the wine. He pictured the plates made up perfectly, warm fig and goat cheese salad, an expertly cut quarter of pomegranate and three drips of a sauce as bright and red as fresh flowing blood. And in the middle, a slice of cheesy, dripping, take-out pepperoni pizza. Will snorted so loud, beer seeped back over his lips. 

The room gradually grew darker as time ticked away, but the television didn't hold his attention for long and his mind drifted easily from his motel room to the glass prison cell, to his house in the snow, to the dark forest with the beast from his dream. And back, always back, to that glass prison cell. It wasn't before long that Will pushed the carton box to the side and fished his laptop from inside his suitcase, setting it up and plugging it in. While shredding the remains of his food between his teeth, he visited the old and loyal search machine and typed 'Male Omega.' into the bar. Part of his mind had advised him against this, afraid of what he would find, and what it would bring. The lines between fact and fiction were blurry in the outside world, and who could say what...? _\- Click_. But he had already decided. If he was going to survive this, endure it, he needed to know anything, everything, whatever he could get. Will reached for another can of beer and cracked it open with a fingernail. 

_'The first known sighting of a male Omega dates back to 1726, when a young man named Paul Williamson presented Omega for an Alpha male named Bollard Hunter. Such an unusual occurrence was considered an act of unholiness and both men were burned alive during the consummation of their bonding', was the first article he found._

“Typical,” Will huffed through his nose, a brief shudder rising beneath his skin. It was the male thing, of course, that made it devilish. Gay. He ran a hand over his scruff as his eyes scanned the bright page. He wasn't...he didn't consider himself a homosexual. Not really. He had enjoyed being with women, and he had never before felt a serious attraction towards another man, until... Well, he was a male Omega now, with a very male Alpha mate. He wasn't sure what that made him to the world. Or to himself.

_The male Omega is an extremely rare occurrence. Only less than 700 cases have been recorded throughout the course of history, dating back to the earlier 1700. The reported cases of the female Omega, however, run up to 1.2 million over the same time period._

It was rare. They had told him this many times, of course, but the numbers on his screen made it that much more real. 700 cases, 700 male Omega's, in 300 years. That meant only two men presented within a year, worldwide amongst billions and billions of people. Will huffed around his pizza crust and shifted his shoulders. Of course, he was that guy. One with a Per mutua nexis mate that was a cannibal and serial killer to boot. No wonder Dr. Hammings was so eager to wriggle fingers around in his brain. The good man had smelled opportunity on Will; he was a creature for the history books, against all odds, beyond any odds whatsoever.

_In 1988 it was discovered that the male Omega possesses the Omega gene in their DNA (usually only carried by women), but whereas 2% of the male population possess that gene in their DNA, only one in every 475,000 presents Omega. The cause of this remains uncertain, though it has been suggested that a male Omega would solely present for an Alpha with high biological compatibility, and only upon meeting him under the right circumstances, both mentally and physically. Whereas the female Omega presents upon reaching sexual prime and attracts possible mates through the secretion of her pheromones. This could account for the relatively more frequent occurrence of Per mutua nexis pairings in male-male Alpha's and Omega's (3.4%) compared to male-female (0.3%)._

Will dumped his leftover crusts in the otherwise empty pizza box. Twenty to twenty-five Per mutua nexis pairings in 300 years. That screamed something. Extraordinary. He swallowed away the memory of the howling, thrashing beast inside him at the sight of his Alpha, and perfectly recalled the hopeless longing, that desperate need, the wild, shredding desire. Not to mention the way they effortlessly flowed together in conversation, found hidden meaning in each other's words and expressions and how their flesh communicated, burned and moved as one.

He danced his fingers over the keys. There were many more websites, articles, confirming his uniqueness, in his kind and in his connection to his mate. It made his chest feel tight, like he was already trapped in a glass cage, captured and labeled an endangered species. Now more than ever, he had to keep to himself, Will realized. No doctors, no specialists, no writers, no journalists. He would go to the hospital and get that medical checkup, for Molly. Once. No more. He wasn't going to be used, experimented on or hunted down, like...

He got lost in his train of thoughts when he clicked on a link and was directed to a pink website, decorated with twinkling stars and Hello Kitty. There was an image of two people, holding each other passionately like on the cover of a cheap romance novel. The blue of his eyes was seeped through with red and his fangs showed from behind curled lips. Her pale skin was heated with passion that shone in her bloody, green eyes and the wave of her wild, auburn hair. It was the captured love, between Alpha and Omega. Will sighed, staring blank and bored at the pairing. He had almost finished his fifth beer, yes, but there was no way he would picture himself and Hannibal in such a pose. 

_One could easily say the 'Per Mutua Nexis' (Intertwined) Alpha and Omega pairing is one for the fairytales. Old folktale suggests that this couple came into this world as one, a single child, until it was cruelly punished, for it angered the Gods with its many talents, strength, beauty and the gift of a long and healthy life. As punishment, the human was ripped in two, living as separate entities that could very rarely find their way back to the other, suffering for eternity. Of course, now we know that the Per Mutua Nexis couple is actually based on the biological, mental and physical compatibility of both parties, but it doesn't make it any less magical that bonded, these two share body, mind and lifespan as one being. Now **that** is romance._

Will pushed the screen down, shutting his laptop with quick hands and a loud click of the device as he rolled himself from the chair onto his bed. _Romance_. That is _romance_. He laughed with his whole body, loud huffs of air into the silence. The ceiling above him laughed along, moving up and down before it started to swirl lightly around the lamp. Too much to drink, Will thought. It had been a while, after all. Outside, light was rapidly fading and the room swam in gray distortion that always seemed to come in the half-lit darkness. Romance. Per mutua nexis was a fairytale, something to dream about as a teenage girl, obsessing over her favorite pop star. For that girl, it wasn't being forcefully chained to another person, never being able to walk away or control your own actions and desires. _Romance._ Will laughed out loud again at the sudden vision of Hannibal in his cell, dressed in a suit, holding roses, lit candles on the prison table and a string quartet playing in the corner. Will held his stomach as a tear slipped from between his lids. _Romance._

There was no dignity in any of it. It was a biological, raw, messy process of skin and blood and untamed animals going at each other. It was all heat and need and want that ran so deep it turned you disgustingly feral. No fairytale and definitely no romance. God no, it had been rough and vicious, teeth and lips hard and sharp and nails in skin and such a wild collide of... Will's lips pressed together, his hands clenched beside him on the mattress. He was also not, not, not, not at all turned on.

“Fuck,” he cursed, feeling the heat pool around his groin, bleeding in with the venomous pain that seemed to inhabit his body permanently now. It had been all this thinking about wild mating, heat and skin and... 

He jumped up in bed, his whole body tense as a loud ringing broke the heavy silence in the room. His head whipped back at the motel phone on his nightstand, the little light on the front flashing red as its sharp noise scratched through the room. “What the...,” Will looked at the old fashioned device, feeling every ring like a fist between the eyes as the red light illuminated the dark room with every flashing blink. Who was calling him, here, close to midnight? The ringing didn't stop, and Will breathed deeply before pushing himself onto his knees on the bed before he shuffled to his nightstand, reaching clumsily around a half-filled water bottle to get to the horn. 

“Hello?”, he spoke quietly when the plastic touched his ear, and the voice that rang through made the wringing tension seep from his muscles like morphine in his bloodstream. “Goodnight, Will,” Hannibal spoke from the line and a giggle escaped the Omega, his body weak with relief and shock and alcohol. A smile remained on Will's lips, feeling the sweet tingle of pleasure dancing on the surface of his agony. “ _How_ are you calling me?”, he exclaimed rather loudly, twisting his body to lean himself against his pillow. As far as Will knew, Hannibal would not just get excess to a phone whenever he pleased, nor did he have Will's number. Hannibal inhaled, the sound alone a caress to his ear-shell. “You have been drinking,” he said, his voice too tight for it to be a casual observation only. “Yes,” Will agreed non-committally. “Now you answer me.” Will could hear fingernails sliding across the horn and he shivered when he pictured the Alpha smug expression on the other end. “I can be very resourceful when I wish to be,” Hannibal answered mirthfully and Will huffed into the horn. “I remember,” he confirmed and Hannibal hummed into his ear, pleasure evident in the deep rumble of his voice. 

“So, you are calling me to wish me goodnight?”, Will asked, a hint of teasing around the question that carried the absurd notion of Hannibal treating him like a high school crush. His Alpha, however, was not at all disturbed by his Omega's woozy provoking. “I am calling to see how you are feeling, Will,” he replied, direct but gentle, honest affection in his tone. Will swallowed and eyed the last can of beer on the dresser. How was he to know his feelings anymore when his head felt like a barrel full of marbles, each one a different screeching and howling burst of sensation within him. “Right now, I feel horny,” he said matter-of-factually, uninhibited, shameless. Out of all the marbles, the lingering heat in his groin had been easiest to identify.

“Well...,” Hannibal said after a pause, his voice carrying a lot of air, a heated hum. Will closed his eyes at the vibration he felt within his body and ran a finger along the buttons of his shirt. He could picture Hannibal so clearly, standing near the door with the phone in his hand, a camera capturing the pink glow of his ears, his closed eyes, his wandering hand as it slid inside his cotton suit... Fuck! “This is not an invitation to phone sex. I'm just stating a fact,” he quickly blurted as his eyes snapped open, pressing his legs together in his jeans as he removed his hand from his torso. His body was now starting to leak slick around his opening as his cock had started to fill inside his jeans. No. He wasn't in heat. He wasn't in heat. There was no excuse for any of this. 

“Not to worry, Will,” Hannibal said after a moment of silence where Will could not detect a single breath from the Alpha. “When your body has gotten used to more sex, it will ask for more sex. As is the rule for many things in life.” Will shuddered at those words spoken into his ear by his Alpha's husk voice. It was not at all helping his predicament, and he wondered if Hannibal knew it, too. _Sex._ They had been everywhere, every way in that cell and he recalled every single time like a movie he could replay with one press of a button. He ran a hand over his forehead and pressed it down his face. “The amount of sex we have had in only three days...,” he mumbled, trying very hard not to envision them on, or even off that mattress, writhing, moaning, rocking. Fuck. 

“Does it remind you of your teenage years?”, Hannibal asked him, his voice clean, but Will could tell he was prying. “God, no. I was never like that,” he replied honestly and heard a huff of air from his mate. “Physical contact and intimacy made you uneasy,” Hannibal spoke and Will closed his eyes. He remembered the giggling girls, parties, couples making out between classes... nothing about it had appealed to him.

“No relationships?”, Hannibal pressed, and Will smiled at the well-hidden desire of a need to know, everything. “A handful of one night stands, a few brief girlfriends. And Molly,” he said, eyes on the ceiling. Sex had always been something that just happened, because he let it. He didn't chase it, he didn't seduce or romance, but if a woman wanted him, it would be fine. Normal. When it happened, it had been nice, but eventually the touching, the kissing, the intimacy, the sharing and talking and trying to make room for yourself in someone else's life, never felt comfortable, like an ill-fitting shape around him. Then he'd met Molly,....

“No men?”, Hannibal burst through his brain and while the Alpha's voice was smooth and steady, Will felt a heat creeping up his neck. “No,” he admitted timidly. “That hadn't happened before.” He watched his fingernails as he willed away the blood that pumped up to color his face. He had noticed some of his classmates in his late teens. But just as with the girls, the idea of touching, sharing, being vulnerable around someone else, it hadn't appealed. Until Hannibal. In hindsight, the attraction had started on a psychological level, from the moment Hannibal had walked into his room with his home-made breakfast of human meat. But before he had even considered his own feelings, everything had fallen horribly, gruesomely apart.

Will cleared his throat and plucked dirt from under his thumbnail. “You must have had many conquests,” he spoke into the horn, picturing Hannibal waltzing with many beautiful women, cooking for numerous men, seducing them with charm and skill and satin sheets. Completely at ease within his own skin, beautiful people simply dropped at his feet. Will flinched at the thought, finding the image distasteful. The idea of _regular_ people having sex with an Alpha made the Omega inside him shudder violently. “I take pleasure in many things,” Hannibal's voice ran smoothly, “but I found myself gradually growing tiresome of the rituals that come with seduction.”

Will licked his lips absently as the words pulled at something pleasant within him. He had not seen Hannibal with many partners before he turned himself in. Just one. “You seduced Alana,” he said, and Hannibal's voice rumbled in a chuckle through the line. “Perhaps she seduced me,” he teased and Will pressed his lips together.“She was convenient,” he protested. “You saw a way to make use of her.” Will knew she had been an alibi, a source of information, an object of manipulation. “I have always been fond of Alana,” Hannibal said, and Will quickly lowered the lip that tried to curl over his teeth. “But our affair was certainly not based on attraction alone.”

Maybe it was the beer, but Will laughed out loud at the coy tone of his mate. “Romance was never more than a game for you, was it?”, he said. “A power play, theater, a way to reel them in,” and he believed his words, because he understood. He knew what it felt like not to fit with anyone. When he found Molly, well... “As much as it was a chore to you,” Hannibal said. “Something normal people do. But it was never more than that, until you met me.”

Will wanted to scoff at the arrogance, laugh at the assumptions. But instead, he sagged against his pillow and felt his body draining dry of willpower. Of course it was true. 

“Come back to me, Will,” 

But it didn't change anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know! Phone calls, phone calls! I promise it won't be all phone calls for the next millions chapters! ;-) I have now officially unplugged the phones! I hoped you guys enjoyed it even if it was a bit of a quiet one, and there wasn't even phone sex! Do forgive me! Love you guys so much for the support and love and amazing kindness that I feel right in the feels! The next chapter, Will is going back to the prison for his checkup, so lets hope that all goes well!! ^.^ All my love!!


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He flashed his eyes to the open, empty doorway before he squatted down before the rows and rows of labeled discs. 014-W235FQ-LEC, that was where he left off. It was followed by more numbers, ending with the same three letters. LEC. More LEC. Rows and rows of LEC. And then, he saw it. 056-C158DD-LECGRA. LECGRA. There were four discs with that code, one for each day he had been here, Will guessed. He stared at them, running fingers over the back as he contemplated what to do. He could guess what was on those discs, certainly. But did that mean he wanted to possess them?

He didn't have to do it. He could still choose not to go. He could just turn around, walk the way he came and pretend never to have been here at all. Molly would be upset, sure, but he could explain this to her. He could tell her... well, he could tell her the truth. He could tell her he didn't trust himself in the hands of any medical man or woman, having been confronted with his true value as a Per mutua nexis male Omega. A biological wonder. That was the truth, even if not the whole of it.

He wouldn't tell Molly that it hurt, physically hurt, to even stand before the Victorian building, with no more than the road separating him from the shell that housed the source of his suffering. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of exhaust fumes, spat out by the cars flashing back and forth before him. Everything within him was elevated, standing so his mate. It made it better, a polished glaze over the rough surface beneath, but simultaneously cranked up the volume of the unhappy murmur in his head to a manic scream. Beneath his skin, everything ached and yearned and struggled against the tight reins on his willpower, craving that honey to fill the howling emptiness.

He opened his eyes, ignoring the feverish flutter in his stomach that tilted towards nausea, and rolled his shoulders back. His shirt was already drenched under his coat, already making him look the part of the trembling, sweating, deprived Omega man. He ran a quick hand through his curls to flatten them against his head as he sighed out the deep breath he had been holding. He had to go in. Fuck, he had to. He had chosen this life, one as a man instead of an Omega, and now he had to be strong enough to live it. He had to. For Molly. He would just get the medical examination done, in and out, and walk away. He would not go and see him, even just to talk. No. The more distance between them, the better, because he knew just how prone he was to this temptation.

He crossed the street before he could reconsider and just when his shoe was about to hit the curb, someone nearly bumped against his shoulder. He turned to catch the back of a black, pulled-up hoodie he instantly recognized. It was the stranger. The Dragon guy. Will halted as the man threw him one quick look over his shoulder with a sharp gaze of frozen blue. Their eyes met, and he felt the ice seep into his flesh, before the man turned back and quickened his pace. Will couldn't help but wonder why the guy had been hanging around the hospital, again. Especially since he had proven himself to have some curiously private information about what was going on on the inside. The Omega blinked and turned ahead. If he saw him again he would stop him, he promised himself, but the thought faded from his mind the moment he placed his foot on the first step to the hospital's entrance.

Every step forward shook him, made his bones weak with sour pleasure, all but unbearable to his sensitive, raw nerves. And every step pulled at him, hard, cruel, like he had to walk on his heels not to be hauled through the door. Heat twitched alive in his belly with the promise of nearness and he was weak already with the pulsing pain and quivering pleasure, grinding in his joints and spreading through his muscles. He wished he hadn't come. He was so close to giving up, already, so close to letting himself be lured into the Devil's lair.

He walked carefully, taking steady breaths and fumbling with the zipper of his jacket as he continued his way in. He wasn't going to show them, anyone, how whipped he was by his Omega, how weakened by his Alpha's call. His footsteps were conscious, slow, attempting to appear self-assured as he passed security, underwent the visitors' inspection, and continued into the hall. No appointment. No questions. He wondered if his name had been added to a list of regular visitors, or maybe even patients. His suspicions were soon confirmed when a white coat and gray hair came scurrying down the staircase on his right.

“Mr. Graham, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you,” Dr. Hammings panted, his short legs carrying him closer as he reached to shake Will's clammy hand with one of his own. His old face was glowing with excitement and exercise, and Will knew he must have sprinted his old body out of his office when the phone call that notified him of Will's presence arrived. The gleam in those watery blue eyes made Will's stomach tight with unease and he quickly withdrew his hand from between the clutching fingers.

“I want that check-up. Fast,” he said, curt, emphasizing his reluctance in the hope to quell the doctor's enthusiasm and expectations of the visit. He wasn't going to be a prized horse, or someone's golden ticket to a Nobel prize. “Certainly,” the doctor hummed, taking Will by the elbow and leading him up the staircase from which he had just emerged. “But...” Will freed his arm from the old man's grip and held up a hand, allowing the doctor to lead the way. “Just a quick check-up and we're done,” he said between clenched teeth, pain swarming above the roof of his mouth as the Omega hooked claws into his brain, digging for a way out. “Yes, well...”, the doctor mumbled as they entered another hallway. Will recognized this floor and passed Dr. Hammings as he looked over his shoulder. “And don't ever call my wife again.”

He knew he sounded threatening, his teeth bared, his body tense, but he didn't care. He was angry, annoyed, he was in such bittersweet pain and... “Mister Graham, you must understand...”, the doctor spoke from behind him and Will stopped dead in his tracks, feeling the man nearly staggering into his back as he turned around. He wondered what he looked like when blue eyes widened and pale, papery skin drained of color. “No, you must understand. I want nothing else than to move on with my life,” he said, curling up his lips. “Away from all this.” His Omega was growling viciously inside his mind, but he suppressed the urge to join in. He was here, after all, to prove he was fine. Annoyed, but fine.

The doctor blinked, his forehead gleaming and his yellow teeth clenched tight. “Of course,” he answered, and Will was reminded of a petulant child that had yet to get his candy. They entered the office and Doctor Hammings quickly started rummaging for medical equipment. Will took an offered chair and slung his coat over the back, crossing his legs and tapping his fingers as Hammings opened drawers and cabinets and that big, brown bag he always carried around. There was a silence where Will waited, and tried to stop his mind from registering any of the shredding, heated ache below his belly. 

The sliding door of the filing cabinet to his left was not properly closed, as if the doctor had forgotten to do so in his hurry to greet his patient. Through the crack, Will spotted rows and rows of what appeared to be discs, covered by black cases and labeled with codes that contained numbers and letters. 027-C351ZT-JEN, was one. 045-F448KH-KLE another. But it was 014-W235FQ-LEC that caught his attention. He stretched his neck to get a better view and...

“Let's get started.” Will's eyes shot back when Dr. Hammings dumped a variety of metal instruments on the desk and looked up at him. “You are drenched with perspiration,” he frowned, his eyes squinting as he walked around his desk to step closer and take in the Omega's soaked shirt clinging to his back. “Has this occurred often since you left the hospital?” Will wriggled under the scrutinizing gaze, but tried to muster a confident smile around the sour pull of his mouth. “I ran the way over here,” he lied, a careless wave of his hand to emphasize the ridiculously obviousness of the scenario. “I do a lot of jogging.”

Two wrinkled fingers pressed to his damp forehead, feeling the heat his blood radiated through his skin. “Maybe jogging is not the best choice for you in your current predicament,” the doctor spoke, his tone even, careful, as he pulled back his hand and caught Will's eye. “I would refrain from any form of exercise for the moment.” The words, the tone, the phrasing, they were all innocent, but Will blinked and pushed his lips together at the images that quickly flooded his mind. He fought hard, but his body was weak and his groin was hot and he couldn't help but remember the last of exercise he had indulged in, and how his thighs had burned the day after he had straddled Hannibal's hips, working himself hard up and down his Alpha's cock. “Fine,” he said, his eyes shifting endlessly as his nails dug into his upper legs.

Hammings took a seat on the edge of his desk while reaching for his notepad and Will noticed the doctor's confidence and eagerness quickly blooming back to life. “You look a little... peaky, for lack of a better word,” he said, watching Will over the top of his reading glasses as he scribbled something on the paper. “How are you feeling?” Will tried not to shift in his seat too often, or to glance repeatedly at the door. He also tried to keep his fingers still and his shoulders straight. “Fine. I'm fine,” he spoke a little hasty. The doctor narrowed his eyes. Pen scratching on paper. Will knew what he looked like, drenched in cold sweat, legs pressed together, face flushed and quivering hands. His skin was pale, his eyes sunken, his hair wild and his clothes wrinkled and crooked from all the tugging and wringing. 

“Do you get enough sleep?”, Dr. Hammings asked him, eyes still on his pad. Of course he didn't sleep enough. He had nightly phone calls and nightmares and the mattress squeaked too loud under his weight. He was alone on that bed. Once, he had preferred it that way, but... “Sure, yes, I sleep fine,” he nodded, trying his best to appear meek as he internally urged himself not to start yawning obscenely during any point of the examination. The doctor pursed his lips and tilted his head, his eyes drinking in every deepened line and widened pore on the Omega's face. “No other symptoms? No pain, fatigue, nausea, headaches, emotional outbursts?”, he listed, counting them out on his fingers as he shook his head, confirming the negative he could see shining in Will's oblivious eyes. He played that part well.

“Nothing that stands out, no,” he shrugged and the doctor's face pulled tighter and tighter. Will felt the old man's fierce suspicion as Hammings stared him down hard enough to bare his brain by sheer willpower alone. “Mmm,” the doctor replied after a tense moment before he turned around on his desk to grab the silver stethoscope. “Well, that sure sounds more than a little extraordinary, Mister Graham,” he commented, supposedly offhanded, but Will could see the displeasure pulling around his lips. “Thank you,” the Omega responded in turn, keeping his face smooth, open, unaware of anything but his own self, doing extremely, extraordinary well.

**

After the dead-end conversation came the tests. Blood was drawn, instruments were pressed to his skin and he peed into a cup that went straight to the lab. Twenty minutes, it took for a man in a mint green lab coat to bring back the results. In those twenty minutes Will hid in the bathroom, and stayed there for as long as he could while trying to fix his hair in the mirror and blow-drying his shirt. He didn't know if he could maintain a smoothed out expression for much longer, when he unseeingly bore this overwhelming battle between dancer and warrior underneath his pulsing flesh, wanting and hating and bleeding as honey and acid alike dripped down the walls of his shell. Not an hour inside this building and he was already going mad. He would do anything not to have to sit in that office, across from the man who wanted to keep him on his high shelf with the rest of his gold prizes and framed achievements. In the bathroom, at least, he could grunt, gulp water and tremble as much as his heart desired.

He passed the mint green coat on his way back, just in time for the results he didn't want to hear. Dr. Hammings gave him a most unreadable look, undoubtedly due to the fact he had just excused himself to the bathroom for close to half and hour, _after_ he had peed in a cup. He didn't comment on it, probably sensing the high tension Will brought back into the room with him. “The oxygen level in your bloodstream is a little low,” the doctor started, reading from the paper sheet in his hands before he looked back at Will. “Do you experience trouble breathing?”

That dream. He remembered his own clawing hands at his throat, tight and thick and hot. He had wheezed and coughed and gasped for hours, only to be cured by his Alpha's voice. “No,” he said, hesitantly, and Dr. Hammings' eyes widened inquisitively. “It has happened,” Will reluctantly admitted when he realized he had trapped himself with his indecision. “Once or twice at the most. I'm fine now,” he quickly added as he watched the doctor's eyes gleaming while he started to look for the brown, leather bag.

The stethoscope was pressed to his chest once more as he breathed and coughed, inhaled and exhaled on demand. His throat was examined with a small flashlight and a wooden stick. “Your lungs sound clean,” Dr. Hammings concluded, returning to his seat and folding away the instruments. “I don't see any signs of asthma. Have you ever...?”, he prattled, scribbling on his notepad as Will ground his teeth behind closed lips. “It's not asthma,” he snapped, interrupting. “Just a little bit of uneasiness.” 

The doctor straightened in his seat, plucking the glasses from his nose as he turned his full attention to the Omega. “Panic?”, he said, almost delighted. “Are you experiencing panic attacks?” There was greed in there, probably a new idea for a chapter in his magnum opus, _Omega and Alpha behavior throughout the ages_ or whatever he would call it. “No,” Will snapped, curt. “I'm just feeling anxious at the memory of being unwillingly placed in the position of a barren breeding cow.” The roll of his tongue around the words was caused by the growl that crept up his throat, and Will hoped the doctor wouldn't notice. The old man only smiled, ruefully and a little... disappointed? “That is understandable,” he sighed, his eyes soft in a way that seemed to offer...comfort? Will felt a brief pang of guilt over his behavior, “Yeah, I would think so,” he mumbled softly in reply, lowering his eyes to the hands in his lap.

Dr. Hammings reached for the paper sheet again and put his glasses back on his nose. “Your kidney function is also a little below average,” he said, his lips twitching with a hint of dissatisfaction. “Are you drinking enough, Mr. Graham?” Their eyes crossed and Will felt like a scolded child under the doctor's pointed eyes. He didn't drink enough. He didn't do anything enough. Everything was always too much or too little with him. “Probably not,” he offered and the doctor nodded. “Please make sure that you do. You have lost a lot of bodily fluids in the previous days.” Will's eyes widened and his ears tinged pink at the suggestion. There had been plenty of bodily fluids, on and in and over and dripping out. His thighs pressed together, his ass pressed harder on his seat. “You need to drink more water, or you will be in risk of dehydration,” the doctor warned him, undisturbed, and Will only nodded.

“Your body temperature is 103 degrees,” Dr. Hammings continued and Will pressed his tongue to his teeth. Shit. “I have a fever?”, he asked timidly, clenching his fingers against his jeans. “Hyperthermia,” the doctor corrected him. “It is quite normal for an Omega's temperature to remain somewhat raised a few days after coming out of heat.” Will almost sighed out his relief at the words as the doctor clicked his pen. “But it is a little above the average, and something for us to keep an eye on, certainly.”

The list continued. “Blood pressure, 130 over 90. Again, higher than I would like, but nothing to be immediately concerned about.”  
Will blinked as the words crashed over him like waves of the ocean, full of knowledge that didn't mean the slightest thing to him.  
“Heart-rate, 114 beats per minute.”  
“Urine, Iron, Liver, B12...”  
“A little high...”  
“Slightly out of range...”  
“A tad unusual...”  
“A fraction more than I would like...”  
Always ending with that same; “But nothing to be concerned about....”

“So, I passed the tests?”, Will asked flatly after the flood of numbers had passed through his unregistering mind. Dr. Hammings tilted his head sideways, a half-hearted gesture. “You are not in any immediate danger,” he admitted hesitantly. “But I would very much like to check if that remains the case. If your condition changes, even slightly, the consequences could be serious,” he said, hissing air between his teeth as he tapped his pen against the desk. He looked troubled, which Will related to his failed attempt to get full access to the Omega's brain, rather than he was actually concerned about Will's wellbeing. Clearly, the good doctor was trying to retain his grip on his trophy. The biggest danger Hammings surely saw was his fame and fortune slipping into nothingness if Will walked out of the door without a follow-up appointment.

“A visit with your Alpha would also be beneficial to your health, Mister Graham,” the doctor nudged, his lips forming carefully around the words as he started rubbing his glasses clean with the hem of his shirt. “I'm fine,” Will bit defeatedly between his teeth, the blood pumping loudly in his ears at the mention of his mate. “I will drink water, sleep plenty, no more jogging...”

“And I would like to see you again in two days,” Dr. Hammings interjected, placing his spectacles back over his ears. Of course he would. Will dug fingers into the seat on his chair, feeling the Omega wrecking through his brain, clawing at his skull with a most horrendous sound. It was a restless, miserable attempt for control and it made Will understand better and better that separated mates would sometimes suffer from brain damage. “No. I can't. I'm not coming back,” he said, chin sticking out in determination as he hid his trembling fingers under his thighs.

“Mister Graham,” the old man sighed, patience seeping out of his voice as he leaned forward on his elbows. Before he could start the lecture Will suspected to come next, however, a voice sounded from the doorway. “Doctor, we have a situation on the second floor, B27,” a blond nurse spoke from behind Will's shoulder and he turned to see her standing two steps into the room, cheeks flushed and hair disheveled. Will could hear the doctor mumbling a string of profanities under his breath and his brain worked fast through the information. Second floor, that wasn't Hannibal, Will thought briefly, and he felt a warm drip of relief down his neck. 

“I'm with a patient right now, Rosa,” the doctor said, strained and bothered as the young woman blinked rapidly and clutched her clipboard to her chest. “It's Burov, doctor,” she said meaningfully, a pointed look at her colleague as her clean, short nails tapped endlessly against the metal of her board. Dr. Hammings sighed hard and deep, his papery cheeks filling with blood as he stood up from his chair and walked past his desk. “Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Graham,” he said, as he passed Will's chair. The Omega could hear him swear again before he mumbled “I don't have time for this,” and followed Rosa into the hallway.

Just when they had been about to wrap things up. Will dropped his head back on his shoulders and grumbled at the spotless ceiling. He didn't want to sit here, waiting, as his Omega grew wilder with every passing minute. He was on fire, body and soul, and it was pain and desire mixed into a ball of absolute madness. He could just leave, now. He could get up and go. He didn't owe anyone anything, he decided. It wasn't very polite, much against his usual etiquette, but he was slowly scorched into a puddle of flesh and blood as he sat here, and that surely couldn't be good for his health.

But as he got up, his eyes drew back to the open cabinet and the coded discs. Will's eyes quickly flashed towards the empty hallway before he stepped closer and tapped the door with two fingers, sliding it an inch further to the left. Again, he flashed his eyes to the open, empty doorway before he squatted down before the rows and rows of labeled discs. 014-W235FQ-LEC, that was where he left off. It was followed by more numbers, ending with the same three letters. LEC. More LEC. Rows and rows of LEC. And then, he saw it. 056-C158DD-LECGRA. LECGRA. There were four discs with that code, one for each day he had been here, Will guessed. He stared at them, running fingers over the back as he contemplated what to do. He could guess what was on those discs, certainly. But did that mean he wanted to possess them? 

He felt slick coating the inside of his boxers and shivered under his half-damp clothes. It was better to walk away, he knew. Exposure to this would only make him weak and vulnerable to... Footsteps approached in the hallway. Quick steps on old loafers. Will reached for the four cases and snatched them out of the cabin with one hand as the other closed the sliding door. Quickly, he moved back into his seat and shoved the square, slim cases into the inside pocket of his coat. A tight fit, but just enough.

“I apologize for the interruption, Mister Graham,” Dr. Hammings spoke as he closed the door behind him. His face was rather flushed and his breath short, Will noticed, and guessed that he himself looked very similar state at the moment. The doctor took his place behind the desk and folded his hands together. “Well...”, he started, but Will wrapped his hands around his coat. “Are we done here?”, he asked, a tad ruder then he would have liked. The doctor looked taken aback for a moment, but he recovered quickly as he leaned forward on the desk, a friendly gleam in his blue eyes. “I would very much like you to tell me how you have experienced these last few days without your mate,” he said, a kind smile around his mouth. Will sucked his cheeks between his teeth. It wasn't Dr. Hammings' fault, really, but he was not at all in the mood. 

“Are you a psychiatrist?”, he asked rather bluntly and watched the doctor's eyes widening. Color crept up his neck as he laid the pen down on his desk. “Well, no...”, he said a little unsure and Will grabbed his coat and rose to his feet. “Then we are done,” he said definitively as he turned to the door. The memory would later make him flush with embarrassment to have behaved in such a way, but at the moment, he felt mangled by both beast and man within. It was too much, and he couldn't cope.

“Thank you for all your help,” he said as he reached for the handle, throwing one quick look over his shoulder as the doctor rose from his chair. “Yes,” he said, overwhelmed by the sudden departure.  
“I wish you the best, Mr. Graham,” Dr. Hammings nodded. “And I hope to see you again soon, despite your determination to stay away.” Will pulled up his lips before he looked away and stepped into the deserted hallway.

His pace was fast, fast, fast as his eyes searched for familiarity. He was leaving, now. He took the stairs down to the hallway, knowing he was close to the exit already, and the thought felt like air to his lungs. He stepped off the last step, surrounded by the old walls of the prison entrance, and felt a heavy pull on himself, mind and body, so tight he was staggering. His head swept the way his body swayed like a nail to a magnet, and he watched the top of the staircase leading down. Down to the basement. He knew what pulled him. He knew who was there. He stopped walking and watched the stairs that lowered into the darkness and knew that if he would stop struggling, he would be led there like a man lost in a hurricane, wind in his back. He wanted to, he did. There was no reason to deny it to himself anymore. But it didn't mean...

“Will,” a familiar voice ripped through his distressed haze. “It is so good to see you here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you all soooooo crazy much for hanging out here with me once a week! ^.^ It is the best thing ever!!  
> So Will is inside the hospital, very close to his Alpha mate! YAY! I'm curious what you guys think of cranky, jittery, lying Will ^.^ He's starting to loose it just a tiny, little bit! I really hope you guys enjoyed it, even if it was a Hannibal-less chapter. Maybe I can make it up to you at some point ;-) All my love! <3 <3 <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis' keys jiggled cheerfully as he walked, and Will spotted a gun, shoved into into his waistband. “You can always come in for a visit, Mister Graham,” Dennis spoke pleasantly as his large boots stomped along the stone floor with authority. “Stay the night if you want.” Will swallowed, and avoided the gaze he felt directed at him. “As Dr. Lecter's mate, you have all those privileges.” They took a right, a left, and went down a long hall as they crossed rows and rows of glass cells filled with leering, whistling scum with wild growing hair, hands in their jumpsuits and missing teeth.

Will turned around to see Alana walking towards him, dressed in a white and black, checkered suit and high, maroon pumps. She came to stand before him, resting her hand on his lower arm. “How are you?”, she asked, her blue eyes wide and her smile weak; the expression reminded him of the way people approached his dad in the months after his mother had left. He covered her fingers with his own in a gentle squeeze before guiding her touch away from his cotton covered skin. “Fine, yeah,” he said hastily, trying to appear upbeat. “I just had my medical examination and I'm fine.” He knew she could probably see the sickly gleam of sweat on his skin in the well-lit hallway, but he tried to smile his teeth bare in the hope she would let him leave without any further inquiries.

Alana sighed in exaggerated relief, a flat hand pressed to her cleavage. “I am so glad to hear it,” she said. “I've been very worried about you since you... stormed out of my office.” Will swallowed when he felt her eyes picking at him, her disapproval almost tangible behind the memory. Again, her hand found his upper arm. “I didn't storm...”, Will flinched, feeling the pressure of her fingers burn through the fabric of his shirt. She must have felt the twitch of muscles there, as she brought her hand back to her shoulder. 

“I sent you an invitation to discuss how we can best arrange your situation in the future,” she said, and Will remembered her missed calls, the texts he had left unanswered, and bit his lip at the swirl of guilt that kick-started in his belly. He had sprinted out of that office. He had refused all of her attempts to contact him. He was, indeed, causing her a lot of stress, even if nothing of it had been remotely his fault. But she had been kind enough despite it, of course. She cared, in a way that fit neatly inside her own box of emotions. “Yes,” he nodded, pushing a hand inside the pocket of his jeans as he pushed the hint of a friendly smile around his lips. “I... Yes, I'll be here.”

His willingness must have been encouraging, because her cool hand now clasped his, grazing the coat on his arm. The coat with the discs in the pocket. “Come by anytime, whenever you want to talk, OK?”, she said kindly, squeezing her fingers around his hot skin. If she felt the unnatural burn, she didn't comment on it. “Thanks,” Will mumbled, and saw her eyes weakening at the sight of him. He was a quivering mess of sweaty curls and a sickly shade of pale and purple. Disgusting, pathetic. Weak, so near his mate without the promise of a touch, or the sight of silver hair, amber eyes, sharp bones. The scent of high fire in the winter woods, lighting the darkness of the night sky with the promise of destruction. Will felt his knees trembling, weakened at the thought, and fought hard to stay upright.

“And you are more than welcome to join me and Margot for dinner sometimes. She would love to see you again,” Alana offered him so very kindly, her hand grasping around his upper arm when she felt the hint of a stumble beneath his bones. She felt his weakness, and knowing that made Will feel a sharp sting of anger. Goddamnit, he wasn't a whimpering, pathetic beast, begging for his Alpha. He was Will Graham, and he had never relied on anybody. “Thank you,” he spoke again, hissing the words when his jaw refused to unclench.

She dropped her hand after a firm rub of his skin and stepped back, clicking her heels on the tiled floor. “So, I guess you would want to see Hannibal? I can arrange it right away if you like,” she offered somewhat casually and suddenly Will felt himself blinded by the shattering blow of her words, when they hit right between his eyes. He staggered back on his feet as he felt his face drained of blood. “No, no, I...”, he stuttered, holding up his hands and shaking his head in short, jerky movements. Alana tilted her head of shoulder-length, brown curls, following his movement backwards with a step forward. “Maybe just to say hello? It really would be good for you to see him,” she urged and Will felt his skin tightening with hot and cold shivers at the offer. “You look a little....peaky.”

And that was the second time he had been called that within the hour. Fuck. The mere mention of a visit to Hannibal was wreaking havoc on his Omega – a writhing knife to his humanity. “I can't...”, he quickly protested and Alana smiled, as if to take his worries away with a simple pull of lips. Before he could turn away, another hand fell on his shoulder of someone approaching him from the back. 

“Mister Graham. Good to see you,” a cheerful, male voice rang in his ear and Will looked over his shoulder to see a muscular, blond man dressed in the black uniform he recognized from the security staff. He remembered the face, but could not pin a name to the row of white teeth and the stylish coif of hair. “Are you here for Dr. Lecter?”, the man asked and Will gasped, audibly this time, his skin pulling so tight around his flesh he felt himself choking. “I...”, he almost whimpered, his bloodshot eyes widened and his pale face shimmered with a fresh flow of perspiration. “We were indeed just discussing the possibility, Dennis,” Alana filled the void of Will's faltering voice. Enthusiastic fingers squeezed tighter in his shoulder. “He will sure be pleased to see you, Sir,” the Omega heard Dennis say. “He has had quite the temper since you left. Even some of his own books didn't survive your separation.”

And the noise, the endless noise of screams and howls and shrieking pain, it stopped. The endless images that flickered in his mind, the burning rage of flinging, flashing screens of everything that had been, that was, that could be.....it ended. There was one image left inside the silence, and it was his Alpha, suffering alone inside his cell. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Everything within Will turned cold. “I-I-Is he aggressive?”, he stuttered, turning himself fully towards Dennis who released his shoulder and nodded his head left and right in consideration. “Only short outbursts,” he spoke thoughtfully. “But he paces back and forth for hours, like a caged animal.” Will blinked and saw the image from behind his eyes, like he was in the room to witness it himself. “He doesn't even draw much anymore.” There was concern in Dennis' light voice and Will felt the simultaneous sensation of wanting to kick the security guard in the groin, and feeling that kick land right between his own legs.

Hannibal was here, close, suffering. He was suffering. He felt pain, because Will stayed away. He... he... There were so many thoughts that had fought each other before, but it was nothing but white noise under the image of his mate, his Alpha, waiting for him. He wanted to walk away, and he almost had succeeded, but now, what choice was left for him? “Do you want to enter the cell, or are you only coming in for a chat?” _That_ choice, it seemed. Will breathed deeply through his nose and blinked away the tears that pressed behind his eyes. He was stronger than this. He should be able to walk away.

“I... eh... a chat,” was the best he could manage. No touching, just talking. Maybe it would be for the best. They could get things out, face to face, before he would step on a flight home by the end of the week. Maybe it would dissolve all this confusion. “Follow me,” Dennis smiled, palming the large key chain on the belt of his pants. Alana touched his arm again and leaned in with a pleased sparkle in her eyes. “I will see you soon,” she spoke quietly against his cheek before pulling back and walking off. In that moment, Will felt the sudden suspicion he had been pushed in this direction all along.

But Dennis guided him, with a broad hand on his damp back, as they headed for the stairs that led them down below. The worst of the worst, they housed here. Dennis' keys jiggled cheerfully as he walked, and Will spotted a gun, shoved into into his waistband. “You can always come in for a visit, Mister Graham,” Dennis spoke pleasantly as his large boots stomped along the stone floor with authority. “Stay the night if you want.” Will swallowed, and avoided the gaze he felt directed at him. “As Dr. Lecter's mate, you have all those privileges.” They took a right, a left, and went down a long hall as they crossed rows and rows of glass cells filled with leering, whistling scum with wild growing hair, hands in their jumpsuits and missing teeth. Will felt a hot flash of disgust beneath his ribs at the idea of counting his mate among this filth, and was pleased to know the Alpha was at least treated like a queen bee, housed in his own space, far away from the common stench. Dennis kicked the glass of the last cell on the right when a bald and tattooed inmate spat against the barrier and hissed something about his mother's vagina, but didn't even look away from the door ahead of them as he worked his fingers over his keys. Will looked, remembered the route, watched the keys, and he cursed himself for doing so with Hannibal in mind. He was poisoned. 

“You could even just use his cell like a hotel room you don't have to pay for,” Dennis laughed and continued the one-sided conversation Will had stepped down from long ago, and the Omega frowned at the guard as he unlocked the heavy door. A hotel room? Even if he would ever want to stay with his Alpha for good, he would never refer to that cell as a hotel room. Hannibal, as a criminal with this many notches on his cutting board, it was an absolute outrage how he could spend his day in a quiet, clean cocoon of his arts and his daydreams. But, luxurious as it was, as a hotel room he would surely rate it one out of five stars, if only for the lack of privacy.

“Thanks,” Will nodded with a forced smile and took the door Dennis held for him. Their eyes met in the exchange and Dennis cocked a curious eyebrow as a toothy smile brushed his face. “It's kinda strange to see you face to face,” he admitted. “After I've seen you so often on a screen.” He turned his back and Will released the door, hearing it fall into the lock behind him. On screen. “Oh,” he said and fondled his lip miserably between his teeth as he followed down another corridor. The need within him turned sharper, sliced deeper, with every step he took, and his vocabulary was growing limited.

“You're taller than I thought you were,” Dennis commented offhandedly, and cheerfully glanced over his shoulder. Will swallowed, and thought of the discs in his coat. Was that what Dennis had witnessed on screen? And was that something he wished to know? “Thanks,” he mumbled, feeling the Omega inside him throbbing like a heart, and showing teeth and eyes in the dark corner of his mind.

“There we are,” Dennis stopped before a large, familiar door, and before Will could step back and change his mind, he began working on the locks with practiced speed. “I-I....”, Will stuttered, but Dennis did not notice his hesitation as he clicked open the last lock. The scent of Hannibal washed hard and deep over and into him and his knees buckled, his Omega wept, and Will himself felt very near tears when that tight bear-trap around his flesh finally loosened and left the gaping wounds powdered with rosy new skin. In that moment, he hated Hannibal, he hated himself, he hated Dennis and Alana and Doctor Hammings. He hated Molly too. He just wanted to go on and wrap his whole self around his Alpha until he had sunken into him completely, without anyone thinking, looking, judging or hurting. No one, not one, could understand what this was doing to him, and that their views of him only made it that much harder. 

Dennis had the door in his hand that beckoned like an oxygen tank under water. “I'm not going in,” he said quietly as he leaned into Will. “He always makes me feel like he's looking right into my brain, and he is not impressed,” the guard spoke and gestured his hand towards the open door. Will nodded, swallowed dryly and stepped past Dennis with feet that wanted to walk ahead of him, but were weak and fragile on his bones. Without another word, he entered the room he had grown so very familiar with. And it was everything. The scent, the sight, the nearness, the connection of their eyes, it was the restoration of everything that had been scooped out of him.

Hannibal was there, already close to the glass, standing tall in his gray prison suit and his short, silver hair. He was pale, his amber eyes were veined and an irritated red and his fingers twitched as he held his arms beside his body. “Will,” he said, his voice softer than usual as his Adam's apple bobbed at the sight of his mate. Will felt a rush of despair, a moment where he envisioned himself throwing his body at that wall for as long as it would take to crawl inside and touch him. His Alpha, Hannibal. His hands would roam and his lips would search as he would pull at the fabric of his suit until it no longer hid that fading bronze skin and silver hair.

“You came,” Hannibal said, pulling Will out of his vision. The Omega lowered his eyes, standing on his spot near the door that had closed behind him, and clutching his coat in his arms. “I wasn't...”, he breathed, shaking his head as a mantra as he searched for an explanation he himself would understand. “It just... sorta happened,” he admitted, shuffling a foot and blinking at the floor until he could no longer bare the pull he felt beneath his eyes and looked back into that amber liquid gaze. Hannibal stepped forward the moment they reconnected and Will could see the quick flutter of his lashes, the tightening of his throat. He felt their nearness too, and if his natural, stoic appearance was any indication, he felt it hard. The knowledge made the Omega inside him lash out, shredding at his core with merciless teeth.

Hannibal moved, gracefully and certain, until he came to stand before the holes in the glass, openings in the barrier between them at hand height. Hannibal rested his fingers on the lower rim before he moved a steady gaze on his Omega. On his forehead, Will saw the same gleam of cold sweat he felt on his own. “Touch my hand,” Hannibal said, not asking a question, and flexed his fingers to lure Will's eyes towards where their skin could meet. Will watched, and the temptation, the possibility, came crashing so hard on him he was almost certain it would break his back with a thunderous crash. Hannibal looked pained, but strong and self-assured. There was a sharpness to him that screamed of control, just what Will had left behind when he walked away from this place.

He wanted that touch. Inside, he struggled and twisted and howled for that touch. But it would be a relapse. It would only make it so much harder to leave, and for Hannibal, to be left behind. Will eyed the fingers wordlessly before he met Hannibal's expectant gaze. “It's just a touch,” the Alpha said, his lips curling into that barely-there smile. His eyes were fire, always, but that had never been different since Will had been brought in an Omega. Maybe even before. Will breathed a laugh, defeated, as he shook his head. “You know it's not,” he said, a bite in his tone to cover the pain, and Hannibal's amber eyes flared at his indirect display of weakness. Will could almost feel his need to protect, to hold, to nurture his mate back to strength.

“Please,” Hannibal then spoke, his voice close to nothing, but his lips betrayed the words. The need in him was as strong as it flowed in Will. He could see it, feel it, he could hear the Alpha's screeching inside his own skull when they stood this close together. And Will could not be strong for the both of them. He walked to the glass, turned around, and placed his back against barrier. All to avoid the biting pull of his suffering mate. He pushed his hands back to slide his fingers through the hole and the touch was instant. Warm fingertips slid against his and caressed his skin, linking their bones and squeezing gently into flesh. The groan of relief, of pleasure, of desire, was made by them both, conjoined into a single sound.

It was pure ecstasy, to be able to touch, even so briefly and so small. It was a sudden climax of mind and bone and blood. Will squeezed the caressing fingers and rolled his head to the side to see Hannibal standing beside him behind the glass, his damp forehead now pressed against the cool glass. “Is it good to see me, Will?”, he asked, lips near the wall between them as his eyes opened and closed under the strain and pleasure their unfulfilling nearness caused them both. Will threw his head back against the wall and laughed, openly, humorless. Was it good? It was everything. It was hell and heaven, pitch black and bright, a bipolar ride of extremes that housed on either opposite of everything. The word to describe it was not something so simple. “Good? No,” he breathed and sniffled when a tear fell into the curve of his nostril.

Hannibal stayed silent and played with the one offered hand with both his own. “I wish you would come in,” he spoke after a moment of just standing near. “I want to hold all of you.” Another tear fell and hid away in the corner of Will's mouth, making him taste the salt on his tongue. “No,” he said, a whisper of air into the room as he felt the soft slide of skin around his fingers. There was a sharp hint of nail into the crease of his joint, but before he could gasp at the sting or consider pulling back, Hannibal soothed the mark with a circling pressure of his thumb.

This was insanity. Everything of it. That barrel full of marbles had turned into into a warehouse filled with most outrageous contradictions. Will twisted his hand in the grasp and turned himself towards the glass, leaning his face near Hannibal's against the barrier that separated them. “You know what I don't understand?”, he hissed and watched the fog from his lips blurring the clear surface. Hannibal looked back at him, both hands on Will's pliant fingers. “You said you could get out of here,” Will spoke quietly, paying heed to the microphones around the room. “Why don't you?”

One hand loosened its grip and rested along the rim of the other hole. Will watched the gesture and followed, bringing his free hand into Hannibal's touch. “Is that what you want?”, the Alpha spoke, and if they were not both blessed and cursed with the hearing of an animal, Will knew he would not have caught the question. He licked his lips and briefly closed his eyes, his forehead resting near Hannibal, without being able to feel the heat of the other's skin. “No,” he whined low in his throat, and rolled his face against the glass. “I don't know.”

Hannibal pressed two thumbs on the inside of his palms until Will's fingers curled up and over his touch. “Part of you does,” he said, massaging deep into the tissue of Will's quivering hands. “There has always been a lively, writhing part of flesh inside you, filled with blood and veins and desires underneath the hardened clay.” Will looked to see the amber eyes across from him, and blinked at the nearness and the shivering heat that seeped right through the glass. “Part of you wants me to sweep you up and bring you into our lives together without giving you the choice,” Hannibal near smiled, and laced their fingers together to pull them even closer. “There would be no fault, no guilt, no responsibility. No one to blame Will Graham.” Will closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the wall as he breathed deeply and unsteadily, visible against the glass. “And you would lie there as I hack away the clay and reveal the true beast underneath,” Hannibal hummed, his voice a tinge of satisfaction at the idea. “It wouldn't be your fault,” he uttered. “But it would accidentally be everything you have always desired.”

Will heard himself whimpering against the glass as Hannibal's words washed over him. It was cruel to say such things, even if the sketch Hannibal sharply penciled into this mind was not a new, untrodden image. He swallowed against a lump in his throat and reached for his Alpha's wrists with both hands, firming his grip on the bones of his arms. The pulse he felt there, was wild, like his own and Hannibal didn't pull away from the vicious grip. “I need you to know where I am,” he said, using his fingers to stroke at Will's wrists in return. “For when you need to return to me.” Will's hard eyes grew weak at the words and the touch as he remembered why his Alpha allowed himself to be caged like a dog in the first place.

“That is why you turned yourself in,” he said. “So I could find you if I presented, no matter where I was.” He had understood it only partly before, knowing Hannibal had wanted him to know where he was at all times. The reason for it had always been abstract in his mind. He had felt it to be a thing of power, a refusal to let Will move on without still picking at a part of his brain. But instead, Hannibal had been waiting, he had wanted certainty that he would never miss or be absent for his heated, needy Omega. When Will had sent him away, the Alpha had dedicated his life to his mate, waiting, even if forever. “Yes,” Hannibal confirmed, twisting his wrist up within Will's grasp to press their palms together. 

“And if I leave here now, what will you promise me?”, Hannibal asked him, his smile calculating, his eyes knowing. Will shook his head, a gasp hitching in his throat. “I-I can't...”, he stuttered, feeling his own hand growing damp against Hannibal's, dry, warm skin. “Exactly,” the Alpha said, rubbing the cold perspiration back into Will's skin. Earth and ocean eyes observed and swallowed the other as they remained close, hands pressed together. “I would be a fugitive. A haunted Alpha.” Will swallowed at the idea. An Alpha was considered dangerous, he knew. If they caught Hannibal, they would shoot him, claiming he had gone wild and feral. No one would have any doubt. “But I would not be able to leave or move from the area without you.” Will's lips quivered, and broad fingertips pressed between his fingers. “If you do not choose me, Will, and I'm unwilling and unable to leave you, what is left for me to do?”

Hannibal's voice was stern, but Will could feel the gentle kneading of his flesh and watched the open eyes of blood and honey and dirt. “Kill whomever I do choose,” he said quietly against the glass. “Kill me.” His lips brushed the glass and Hannibal's eyes flashed towards the brush of moist pink, shielded from him by the powerful glass. “If I kill you, I kill me.” he said, tracing the rim of Will's nails. A smile of humor and sadness pulled at his lips all at once, and Will could see the wrinkles deepening around his eyes. The tip of Will's shoes touched the glass, as his torso pressed wholly into the hard material. Somewhere in the building, there must have been an alarm going off for standing too near, but he was certain they allowed them this, considering the circumstances. “So what would you do?”, Will asked him, rolling his lower lip between his fangs. Hannibal watched his sharp teeth, and ran a pink tongue along his own, larger ones. “My Alpha has grown much stronger since he has met your Omega,” he said, a low whisper against the wall. “I can honestly say I do not know what would happen.” Will blinked, unable to feel outrage by the confession, or even fear. It was the instinct, it was the life-choking desire, and he understood it well. Hannibal brought his eyes back to Will and licked over his lips. A drop of blood brushed over the pink skin, as his fangs must have pierced his tongue. “But, I do doubt any of it would be beneficial for a healthy start of a strong, bonded relationship.”

He wrapped their hands together in a strong hold of united fists as Will felt one eyebrow trembling with exhaustion and weakness. “I'm leaving here with you. Not before,” the Alpha said and Will pressed his lips together to fight the flow of tears that queued behind his eyes. Hannibal stroked the skin of his knuckles with a blunt nail and smiled. “I want you to have chosen me, no one else.” Will slipped his hands free, offering them palms up through the holes and Hannibal cupped them from below. It would have been easier, he now believed, if he had just gone in for sex. “What if that means you never get to leave?”, Will croaked, openly showing the pain that he didn't have the strength to hide any longer. More tears found their way down his chin, and he felt Hannibal's touch twitching for the need to comfort and hold. The Alpha pressed closer to the glass, eyes on his mate, and smiled until his teeth were bared.

“I don't believe it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, ok, so, Hannibal was in this one, but some of you might hate me for still keeping them apart! Sorry, sorry, sorry!! >.< I do love a slow burn, don't hate me please! I hope you enjoyed it none the less, even if Will is still a sad little puppy! They did get to rub handsies like teenagers on a first date! ^.^ I hope to make it up to you next week with an extra long chapter! Some guessed it right, it was Alana! Hope it wasn't a let down ;-) I also brought back Dennis ^.^  
> I love you guys so much with all the love and support you are giving me! I can't believe how cool Fannibals are and how much fun it is to read and reply to your reviews! You are so smart and funny and lovely people! Never seen that in any other fandom, to be honest! All my love! <3


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6 A.M. 
> 
> Will watched himself wrapped in thin sheets and Hannibal's arms on the floor of the prison as they slept together on the single mattress, surrounded by clutter. Everything was silent as they breathed together in a slow, steady pace. Will saw Hannibal's weary hair, his bare, broad shoulders, and looked at the curls that covered his own forehead as his eyes moved beneath the lids. It was surreal, watching himself in a state he had never witnessed before. Peaceful. Careless. Minutes ticked away where they just stayed spooned in their cocoon of sleep but Will didn't fast forward. He watched them, couldn't tear himself away. He watched every second that passed. 
> 
> It wasn't until 7:12 that Hannibal began to stir against him and opened his eyes. The blood and gold of predatory, awakened Alpha shone hard through the screen and Will felt it as if fingers reached inside his lower belly to squeeze around everything pink. His body hunched forward as he tore his eyes from the screen and took a deep breath before he dared to look again.

Will felt his phone buzzing in his pocket to indicate the arrival of a text message. He was on his way back to the motel, walking fast but swaying on the joints of his knees and ankles. It was Molly, he realized when he pulled the phone from his pocket and swiped open the screen. She was curious, of course, about the results of the medical examination. Will read as he walked, staring at the screen until it faded to black, then unthinkingly shoving it back into his coat, a grimace openly on his face. Doctor Hammings was clearly terrific at trafficking information about him to his wife. Let him do the honors of filling her in.

Because Will was sick. He had been positively, undeniably ill ever since his hands had slipped from Hannibal's warm grasp, and he had stepped out of the building into the open air. He gritted his teeth as he crossed a street, only two blocks away from his motel room. He had feared for things to get worse after a visit, and he had been right. He was shivering under his clothes, soaked and cold and burning hot in the very same breath. His stomach had emptied itself in a trashcan in the park and his head was splitting along his temples with a wild pressure of cruel, angry fire that was enhanced by the roaring of his suffering Omega. 

It was insanity. Walking away had felt like slow suicide and now he knew for certain he could not go back there, because he surely wouldn't survive. His body, his Omega, his mind, all of it was coming apart, ripping so far from the seams it would never again fit back together. It had been too much, or perhaps, maybe, the touch of those hands hadn't been nearly enough. Will shook his head and angrily wiped a drop of sweat from the tip of his nose. 

Fuck. No... no. He tried to take a deep, calming breath as he walked. He wasn't dying, his charts were fine. He just couldn't go in there anymore until his next heat, that was all. That was all.

It also occurred to him that if the doctor was in contact with his wife, he might tell her about this, these chats or visits, and her understanding and support would not be endless. She didn't know what it was like, how frantic and urgent it had so quickly become between them. Molly, she didn't even know about the heats yet, the four times a year, lasting for days, breeding sessions he was required to participate in for the sake of his life. He would still have to tell her that there was no way for him to be able to turn away completely. No drugs, no medical treatment, no nothing. 

When Will arrived at his door and grabbed the knob to push his key in the lock, he felt the door already giving way under his weight. It was already open. Inside the room, it was dark. The curtains were drawn and the lights were off, just as he left it, but Will could see the lock had been forced. A cold draft slithered up his back as he pushed the knob, took a step forward and moved his head around the corner. Empty. It was hard to see into the poorly lit space, but he noticed his belongings were scattered around his open suitcase. That was _not_ how he'd left it. Will swallowed, cursed under his breath and felt a harsh pull on his skin as goosebumps rose fiercely to the surface.

With the door open behind him, Will stepped over the threshold and moved to flick the light switch. _Click_. Finally he could see the tousle of clothes on the floor, his laptop beneath a pile of his underwear and several of his books under the side table. There was a scent that clung to the small space, his belongings, his bed, and it was one he couldn't place or understand. It was that of strong, red peppers and smoke and the sharp tinge of Aconitum flowers. It wasn't human, not entirely, and it felt poisonous to breathe it in. His eyes watered at the sharp sting that it brought around the sensitive rim.

Will checked the closet, the bathroom, under the bed and behind the doors, but the place was deserted. He couldn't find anything missing from his belongings, and it left him with nothing but empty, eerie confusion. After a moment of mindless back and forth pacing, Will opened the window and the door to let fresh air stream in, and sat on his bed to watch his suitcase, his books, his laptop, as the scent washed out, bit by bit, replaced by nothing but the outside breeze that ruffled the curtains. He shook out his sheets, he fluffed out his pillow and before it turned dark, he pushed the key in the lock and shut the door from the inside out.

**

There was nothing Will would rather do, sitting on the bed, dressed in damp, dirty clothes, than take a long, warm shower. He was covered in old sweat and his skin was sticky with it. He could smell himself without even lifting his arm, and the ripe scent of man made him wrinkle his nose in distaste. Yet, here he was, on his bed, not making a move.

Will had felt rather shaken after discovering the mysterious break-in, and after closing the door, he remained apprehensive, suspicious of every noise outside his window. But after a lost feather from his fluffed pillow had made its way into his nostril, he had pressed a finger to his nose and dragged it up to stop himself sneezing. And then, he had felt calm. He had felt safe and he had felt strong, powerful, protected. He'd smelled his Alpha on his skin and it cured the pain, the fear, the noise. It had brought the peace he craved, and soothed his wild water into a gentle stream. And as sick and scared and tired as he was, fuck it, he would indulge in it. He had nearly moaned into the scent as he pressed both hands to his face and breathed, breathed, his mate into his lungs. 

So that shower, that shower he needed and wanted and really, really longed for, it would have to wait, because he was simply unable to wash away that scent of winter fire and home. Home, even though he had chosen a different place for himself in the world. Will breathed out a laugh into the silence of his room. He was weak, yes. He was so incredibly, disgustingly weak, and not just for sniffing his own hands like a bloodhound with prey. He had gone to see him, touched him, and he had felt the contact all the way through. He had wanted to cross the barrier between them, so violently. If that door had been opened, he feared to think about what would have happened, even now he wasn't in heat. He felt him so strongly, always. His pain, his joy, his desire, and his touch, right on the inside of his skin. He wanted him. He wanted him so Goddamn much and it couldn't be allowed to happen. He couldn't allow it to change anything.

Will shifted his weight and heard plastic cracking under his hip. Oh. He was sitting on the pocket of his coat that was sprawled out on the bed. His bones had rested on the inside of his pocket, and inside... oh God. Inside were those fucking discs. Will closed his eyes, pressed his hands to his nose and inhaled so passionately it must have looked like he was getting high, but he didn't care. He was calmer now. The pain was at bay, just out of sight, and he was so weak, so tired, he just let it happen without the shame that would return when the scent on his hands had been washed away. Again, his hip leaned hard on one of those plastic cases and Will reached in, reluctantly, to drag out the four discs from his pocket and held them before his face. LECGRA. Lecter Graham.

He turned the plastic over in his hands and let his nail track the ribbed surface on the sides. Those cases, they felt warm in his hand from where his body had pressed on them. Will brought one of the plastic covers to his nose and smelled his own scent of autumn Omega, mixed with the stuffy smell of office and a sharp whiff of hand sanitizer. If these discs were what he suspected them to be, he would be able to watch himself through that camera, that red light in the high corner. He would be able to witness himself being brought into the cell, attacked and attacking as Hannibal and he fucked brutally on that damaged table, right before it would break and send them flying across the floor where they continued what they had so aggressively started. It was a haze, but Will remembered everything that had happened within the tunnel vision of his heat-affected eyes.

He swallowed, his mouth dry, and squeezed the cases tighter in his hand. Everything would be there. The sex, the talks, sleeping together on the ripped mattress. Eating, and kissing and crying. That morning he left....Will dropped the discs on the bed and swung his legs off the side. His hands covered his face, making him that much more aware of his Alpha's scent that lingered on his skin. The idea of watching those images made him feel so fucking vulnerable, like he was made of nothing but twigs and grass beneath a pile of heavy pebbles. It would show him what they had seen, guards and doctors, specialists and maybe even Alana. It disturbed him, but not enough. They were on there, in their cocoon of heat and need, and the connection that had spun a private world between them. Will wouldn't say he missed it, because that would just be... He sucked saliva through his teeth to hear it whistle. That would be admitting defeat. He would say it had been easier, somehow, than it was now. It had been calmer, clearer, and definitely more pleasurable. The sex, God... Will's groin stirred hot, ferociously, at the idea of what he now possessed in images. Slick coated the back of his thighs and his cock pushed impatiently against his zipper at the mere idea.

It was agonizing desire he couldn't control, so deep and connected to every root, ending in a swirling ball of darkness within him. It was savage, restless, wild without the promise of peace or a dot on the horizon, where it would end. Will whined low in his throat, the sound nothing but that of an animal. Hannibal. Fuck, shit, fuck, he wanted Hannibal. He needed to see him, to touch him and feel him and smell him, in and out and everywhere. Will looked at his hands before his face. That scent, Will's and his, had been deeply embedded in his skin for days, and it had become one unique perfume of dark seasons. It was having been so close to him, combined with the exhaustion and the fury of his Omega that made him feel like he was breaking, losing, unable to keep fighting. And he wanted to watch those goddamn discs too. He did. Of course he did. His body was throbbing at the mere idea of watching what he couldn't help but desire most, and for tonight, he allowed himself to treat the pain. By watching. Just watching. He was just going to see what was on there, he assured himself. Just a look.

He placed the laptop on his bed and sat himself up against the headboard with a pillow in his back before pushing a disc into the drive. _Click_. He opened the folder, he moved the mouse, he listened to the roar of the angry, tired laptop coming to life... and there it was. Video files. There were several, labeled by the time of the recording. The first one started at 6 A.M., and the last file ended at 6 A.M. the following day. _Click_. He opened the first file and waited, waited for a frame, a video player, and suddenly... he was back in the cell.

6 A.M. Will watched himself wrapped in thin sheets and Hannibal's arms on the floor of the prison as they slept together on the single mattress, surrounded by clutter. Everything was silent as they breathed together in a slow, steady pace. Will saw Hannibal's weary hair, his bare, broad shoulders, and looked at the curls that covered his own forehead as his eyes moved beneath the lids. It was surreal, watching himself in a state he had never witnessed before. Peaceful. Careless. Minutes ticked away where they just stayed spooned in their cocoon of sleep but Will didn't fast forward. He watched them, couldn't tear himself away. He watched every second that passed. It wasn't until 7:12 that Hannibal began to stir against him and opened his eyes. The blood and gold of predatory, awakened Alpha shone hard through the screen and Will felt it as if fingers reached inside his lower belly to squeeze around everything pink. His body hunched forward as he tore his eyes from the screen and took a deep breath before he dared to look again.   
Hannibal was nuzzling along his neck, scenting at his throat, nudging against his curls and Will knew it was pure animalistic, honest affection. Those kisses that followed against the skin of his neck made the sleeping Omega stir and Will watched the contact, the tenderness on the screen before him with open eyes, parted lips, frozen limbs. He watched himself turn to Hannibal, following those lips, and kiss him, pressing closer, reaching up to touch his Alpha's jaw, his hair. The primal contact, pure and whole, it showed in them both. More so than he had realized at the time. He felt a sharp sting on his cheek and noticed his own nails pressing hard into the flesh of his face. He remembered this moment, of course, and he remembered feeling conflicted about such intimacy outside of a raging moment of heat. He didn't wish to see it, and yet he couldn't pull away. This had happened, because he had allowed it. Because he had wanted it to happen. That was as far as he had dared to analyze it, then and now.

Alana appeared on his screen, and for once he was grateful for her interruption. The conversation that followed was something he remembered fairly well when it started, but gradually slipped away as he watched himself wrap his arms and legs around his Alpha, a nose under his mate's chin. Fuck, yes he remembered. Oh God. His cheeks burned furiously with embarrassment as he watched himself shamelessly rubbing his whole body against Hannibal, right in front of Alana. He was thankful to see things did not escalate any further when Hannibal picked him up and carried him to the bathroom in the back of the cell with large hands supporting and spreading fully over his ass. Will watched himself disappear from the screen as he crossed his ankles and pressed his thighs together. He knew what would happen behind that door. He knew Hannibal would drop to his knees behind him and lick his way deep inside until Will's knees had buckled. Then, they had jumped into the shower and fucked hard against the steaming glass. The way it had felt, the things they had said... Will breathed sharply into the empty room, letting his fingers scratch at the jeans around his thighs.

Alana walked out of the frame, but soon the cell was opened by a guard who led in half a dozen men that carried a bed frame, a table, new mattresses and chair. Fuck, of course. Will pressed hands to his eyes. He had forgotten about the furniture being replaced while he and his Alpha had mated loud and violent only one wall away. “No, God no,” Will moaned as the men made quick work of gathering up all the splintered pieces of broken furniture. There were moans, groans and desperate whines that filled the cell and all of them he recognized as his. “Don't,” Will moaned his despair and bit his cheek hard at the mingle of hot shame and hot memories of what was happening inside that room. “Fuck, shit, THERE,” his own voice shouted through the wall, and Will almost whimpered with the vivid memory of being flushed against the tiles, his Alpha's tongue deep inside his hole as he pressed back against his face to take him deeper. One of the working men let the bed frame slip from his hands and three of the others abruptly paused their work, shifting their gazes between the bathroom door and each other. Ears were pink and eyes were wide. Will groaned pitifully, while simultaneously feeling his cock filling with blood at the soft string of moans and whimpers that rung from the screen.

One of the men mumbled something, another chuckled under his breath and the guy on the far right seemed to adjust himself in his work uniform. “God,” Will sneered at the sight, subconsciously adjusting himself inside his own, tight jeans. The noises never quelled as the men continued their work, glancing towards the bathroom that continued to metaphorically 'rock' with the obscene noises that had been brought forth by his own throat. “Fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME!”, he heard, just as two men carried in the new table. The first one dropped it on his own foot and the other cursed loudly when the heavy furniture slipped from his own grasp and tumbled to the side. There was more mumbling, some profanities, and most of them were now blushing a deep, scarlet pink. Will noticed how the one in the back was rubbing his hands over his thighs while another pulled his shirt down over his crotch. It was absolutely disturbing. Disturbing. Will popped the button of his jeans and lowered his fly, just to give himself some room.  
Hannibal had known about this. He had talked about those men, listening, getting off on the idea of what was going on inside that bathroom. And he had fucked into Will as he talked about it. He had reminded Will of his audience, and it had only added to the heat. He'd promised to kill them for listening in, for imagining just how Hannibal was pounding into his slick, Omega's hole. Will pressed an open hand to his groin at the images that filled his head. Hannibal had slammed onto his prostate with such pressure and speed that he had come all over....

_Enough, enough_. Will took his hand off his jeans and pressed the drive until the image went black and the disc was spat out by his laptop. He sniffled once, released a heavy breath and watched his hands shake before his eyes. That was....That had been surreal. He had been there, but he hadn't. It was a peek behind the curtain of something that shouldn't even exist. If his hands were not covered with his Alpha's scent, Will would have wiped at the sweat on his forehead, but instead, he let it shimmer on his skin as his fingers pried the second disc free of its case and slid it into place. Yes, he was watching it. Yes, even after this. He couldn't even think of a justifiable reason why he was, but he wasn't going to bother with one. It was bigger than he was, and he needed so see him. Just for tonight. 

_Click_. And there he was. Beautiful and strong and completely savage. It was the first time Will had entered the cell, he realized, as he watched himself being escorted into the room by heavily armed guards. Hannibal was there, trembling wildly with uncontrolled need and Will swallowed hard at the sight. His mate looked so strong, so feral with blood in his eyes, fangs on display, his back hunched like he was prowling his prey. They scented the other, hunting like beasts with blind eyes before they pounced, using nails and teeth. Will remembered the bone crushing, mind shattering, gut wrenching desire within himself when he walked inside that door, and watching, he felt a flutter of something wild hitching in response. Hannibal yanked his curls back with grabbing fists and he watched his own head roll back in submission as his nails left bloody trails over Hannibal's back. “Oh,” Will gasped at the stream of blood drops that ran down Hannibal's smooth skin and his cock jumped harder inside his underwear. The scent of his arousal, combined with Hannibal's sent on his fingers, was an intoxicating, heady mix that filled the air around him as he watched them mating on the screen. 

Hannibal pushed against him, and shoved his hips onto the tabletop that was already weak with damage. “Fuck me,” he heard himself moaning and watched himself rising his hips off the table like a wanton whore: “breed me.” Hannibal hissed and Will watched himself go delirious under his Alpha, while he felt himself leak wet and burn hot in his underwear at the sound. There was no point in stopping it, he knew. He was either going to touch himself while watching this, or touch himself later while thinking about it. His entire body was building a boiling pressure within him, and it was made of ecstasy amongst the endless torture. The cause was lost. Will whimpered heatedly into the room as his hand reached to undo the row of buttons of his shirt, from his collarbone down to his pelvis. “Please, please, please, Alpha,” he cried on the screen as Hannibal lapped at his opening with broad strokes of his tongue and eyes that closed and fluttered with the pleasure of tasting his Omega. 

Will watched himself on screen in an equal state as his eyes turned white and rolled wild in his head. He jerked and whined unseeingly on the table as his nails clawed viciously at Hannibal's flesh, which made the Alpha snarl his teeth bare. “Now. Now. Please,” Will heard himself cry and reached down his bared chest, running nails along his collarbone. His breath hitched when he watched Hannibal hoisting his knees up around his hips and pushed into his body in one quick stroke. His large cock sank into wet, tight heat and Will watched his body stretch, slick and ready for all of his mate, and heard both Hannibal and himself whining desperately against the other. They were lost, completely swallowed by the dome of pleasure, just big enough to fit them both. 

Their eyes met, despite the wild instinct to just rut and rock, and Will's fingers found the short pubic hair and scratched against the skin. They were so deeply connected, in complete surrender to their nature. They moved together and Will watched raw tears of pleasure on his own face. He could see the table wobbling under their weight as they fucked hard, fought hard, touched everywhere and loved it with complete abandon. “Fuck.” Will pushed his jeans and boxers over his hips to release his wet erection to the open air.

His fingers traveled up his hard shaft when Hannibal wound his fingers around the Omega's throat and pressed unforgivingly against his windpipe. Will watched himself howling and snapping his teeth in response, and he remembered that precise moment. He remembered the taste of Hannibal's blood on his tongue and the way his Alpha's cock stretched every inch of his body until his mate fit inside him so snug, every bit of him burned painfully with invitation. Will's fingers wrapped around his filled out cock as he remembered the pain that had only indulged his pleasure so cruelly. He hissed between his teeth as he watched himself arching off the table, his eyes blind with pleasure and his ass filled with all of his Alpha's cock. It was terribly disturbing and extremely, most extraordinarily arousing.

“Hnnnn,” Will moaned into the teeth that bit into his bottom lip as he stroked his own hard flesh with an unsteady hand. Spreading the leaking pre-cum over the tip and down his length as he worked his skin slowly up and down beneath his quivering fingers. He could clearly see the tear streaks on his own flushed cheeks as he watched Hannibal pounding into him without mercy, and saw his hips meeting his Alpha almost obscenely greedy as he tried to pull even closer. Hannibal bit him right above the nipple, and Will watched blood pouring from his skin as he pressed his hand tighter around his cock, feeling the beautiful pressure build inside his belly. The table broke not long after, but they hardly even seemed to notice when they were both flung to the floor. Will watched himself get on all fours, completely shameless, and push his dripping ass up in the air so lustfully it made him blush a crimson red as he stroked two fingers over his slick hole. “Fuck.”

_Click_. Another file, and here he was crawling over a sleeping Hannibal while positioning himself above his Alpha. “No. Jesus no,” Will moaned into his hand while the other continued to pump around the hard length of his cock. “Fuck, ohh fuck,” he heard himself whimper on the screen as he sank down around an oblivious Hannibal's erection. The Alpha started growling in his slumber and Will lowered his own hips on the mattress to sink a finger inside his clenching, empty hole. “Ohhh.” It wasn't something he normally did, but God, it felt good.

Hannibal's eyes sprung open and he scratched at Will's thighs with a furious growl before he tilted his hips to meet his mate's thrusts. Will watched himself shudder, whimper, surrender, as he was brought down for a hungry kiss that seemed to scream of a battle of dominance between them and left both swollen and red around the lips. Will pumped his cock faster at the sight of Hannibal's bloodshot, fluttering eyes when his Omega clenched tight around him. The Alpha hauled him to his chest to fuck harder into his wailing mate and Will pushed a second finger into his tight, slick heat as he panted between parted lips, and rubbed the head of his throbbing cock. “Ohhh God.”

It was obscene, how he cried and howled and scratched like a rabid dog while rolling his hips hard and wild on his Alpha's large and wide erection, so desperate to fit it all inside. Hannibal licked at his tears to soothe him before he marked him red with sharp fingernails over all his pale, exposed skin. A third finger fitted itself into Will's slick hole, staining his hand until it was drenched and slippery before he pushed down to meet the stretch of his insides. “Fuck,” he whimpered at the feeling of his nail brushing against his prostate, while watching himself ride his Alpha with such passionate, destructive energy, it was positively barbaric.

_Next_. Will stroked over the hard flesh of his erection and moaned openly and pathetically when he watched himself being pushed roughly against the glass prison wall he had touched only today. He watched Hannibal's hand press on his belly as he lavished his neck with kisses and nips. Their voices mingled in growls and howls and... fuck, Will pushed his fingers deeper inside the slick of his ass and grazed the little nub inside him with pressing tips. It didn't feel like when Hannibal touched him, fucked him, but it felt so soothingly familiar, and he couldn't help but pump his hips into the air as his cock slid into his fist. “Please. Please, Hannibal,” he heard himself begging on the screen as the Alpha attacked his mouth with his own and his ass with merciless pumping fingers.

Then, Hannibal pushed inside his body from an angle that provided a most spectacular view, and the air filled with noises that would not have been identifiable as human. They fucked hard, but slow, and it looked almost painful if Will hadn't remembered bright and vividly, that it had instead been everything else. Everything, if not enough. He watched himself scrambling against the glass, pushed into the wall from behind as Hannibal's hard, glistering cock slid in and from his body with controlled strokes. It looked hypnotizing, enthralling, and Will gripped his own cock hard in his hand as he smeared his own slick from his balls to the tip of his shaft. He wished, staring at the large, wide girth of Hannibal, that he could sink to his knees in that very moment, and take it into his mouth to see how much of it would fit. He never had tried. Not ever. Two slick fingers ran over his nipple and pinched the peaked flesh, before he brought his hand down to scratch helplessly against his flexing abdomen while pumping his hot, hard, slippery erection with a tight grasp. 

“Uhh, uhh, uhh,” he heard erupting from his own throat with every push into his body, and Will couldn't help but mimicking the noise as he pushed his fingers back between his legs and started pumping. “Fuck you,” he growled on screen when Hannibal did not respond to his silent pleas for more and it wasn't long before they toppled over onto the floor, where Hannibal punished him with a brutal pace that Will could remember so vividly his hole clenched tight around his digits. He had thought of how hot this must have looked, working his hips to fuck himself hard on his floored Alpha, and the pressure in his balls and the tingling in his thighs were proof how true that really was.

On another file, they were fucking on the table after the argument they'd had about him leaving. Will watched Hannibal push him over the table with demanding, angry hands before he stripped away his jumpsuit and wasted no time to fuck him, hard and punishing. Hands pulled at his hair, nails dug into hips and Will whimpered at the memory of how good it had felt to be beneath the weight of his Alpha, completely at his mercy. His fingers pushed harder and deeper inside him, finding his prostate with the tip of his fingers with every stroke as he fisted his cock hard and tight in his hand with a thumb that rubbed circles along the slit of the leaking head. “Oh fuck, Jesus,” Will cursed at the hot pressure in his lower belly as he watched his own eyes fluttering wildly in his head. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me,” he cried over the speaker and Will whined in response. 

The scene of the next file was the last time they had sex. It was on the single mattress with Will on Hannibal's lap and the frantic strokes of his hand slowed at the sight of them, rising and falling together. Hannibal supported his weight as their bodies shuddered and their mouths met in slow licks and gentle pulls of lips. Hands roamed, but no longer viciously. They stroked, caresses, more worshiping than desperate, angry demands for contact. Will saw tears on his own face, much different than the ones he had seen there before, and witnessed the same glimmer in Hannibal's eyes. There was pain, more evident to him now than it had been then. He hadn't known here, how hard the choice he was going to make was going to be.

Warm hands loved his skin, held him steady, kept him safe from falling, and Will let go completely into Hannibal's arms. He watched himself shudder violently when Hannibal's knot began to swell at the base of his cock and felt an overwhelming need to spill his own tears and seed all at once as he stroked himself hard but slow, punishing. His wriggling fingers that rubbed against his prostate slipped out and he brought them to his face to smell sharp Omega slick and the heady scent of his Alpha, mingled, tangled, mixed together into perfect, feral darkness. On screen, he watched himself take Hannibal's knot inside him as he continued to tremble around him, spurting his release as his unseeing eyes stayed on his Alpha. who in turn tensed inside his mate as the muscles of his stomach clenched hard, before he followed after Will and watched him like he was the only thing ever worth watching.

And Will followed him, hand hard and fast on his pulsing cock and slick fingers with united scents to his nose, to his lips, in his mouth. He tasted them, together, and then he erupted. He watched their eyes, their gentle hands, their breathtaking connection, as he spurted over his fluttering belly. Pearly drops of white fell onto his sweaty skin as he groaned with eyes open on the screen, and his hands worked slowly, riding out the waves of pleasure that raced beneath his skin, into the deep tissue of his flesh. “Fuck.” Oh, it was good, the orgasm. It was what he needed. But it wasn't... that. It wasn't.....

It was seconds of hot pleasure, followed by the dull throbbing of the afterglow. It was human pleasure, familiar. What he had witnessed on the screen, that had been so much more. “Aah,” Will panted, coming down from his climax with his fingers still inside his mouth and his spent cock in the palm of his hand. He let go of himself, brought his hand to the sheets, but didn't wipe his fingers. Not yet. His head fell back, his chest was rising rapidly. Fuck. This was wrong. This was dirty and sick and wrong. Narcissistic even, not to mention that many others had watched this before him. That alone should have disturbed him enough not to have wanted this.

It didn't matter anyway, Will thought, as he tried to slow his heavy breathing. It hadn't worked. He'd wanted the pain to be relieved. Instead, after watching what he had just seen, he wished he could just ball up and cry. It had been such a rise and fall, what they had shared in those few days. It had been violent, raw, completely mindless at first. Then, it had started to become something different. Their conversations flowed like they had done in the old days and eyes had softened while touches gave instead of took. Their connection had been undeniable. By the end of it, it hadn't looked like mating anymore. It had looked like something else entirely, something for which he didn't want to find a name.

He stared at the ceiling. There was one more disc left, and it was their goodbye. He used the sheets to clean himself and hoisted up his underwear while he kicked off the jeans. He didn't want to watch that disc. All he wanted to do was turn over and sleep and hopefully it would allow him some moments of oblivion. But the disc burned in the case none the less, and he knew he wouldn't stop thinking about it until it had been slipped into the drive. _Click._

He let the video play, even though he couldn't find the strength to watch it anymore. He just sat there, arms around his waist, his back against the headboard, and heard the words that were spoken through the speaker. But he didn't look up to see their eyes, the touches, the kiss. He didn't look up to see the face of his Alpha as he walked from him without looking back. He just let the video run, until there was nothing but silence on the screen. 

Fifteen minutes passed, maybe twenty, and both rooms remained quiet. Will stared at the ceiling, listening to Hannibal's silence on the screen, and wondered if they could fall asleep together, like this. When he did look, maybe half an hour later, he saw his mate on the bed, on his back, staring at the ceiling, just like he was. He was completely still, but his eyes were open and his fingers that lay against his sides were bent with hidden tension. He looked like Will had never seen him.  
Even if he hadn't possessed the strength to watch this before, he couldn't look away now. His mate was there, unreadable, unreachable, alone. His knee twitched once, his eyes, his shoulders, they jerked. Hannibal was the master of all control, Will knew. He didn't yawn or belch or fidgit. But now he twitched, and the sight was most disturbing. He never stopped staring at him as they lay together in silence for an hour. Then, Hannibal got up from the bed and started pacing, from the bed to the opposite wall, and back, and back, and back again. Will watched him, saw nails pressing into palms, saw sweat on his temple, saw teeth grinding behind closed lips.

Another hour passed, and Hannibal walked. Eyes unseeing, feet unstopping. Will could watch for hours, even if it hurt enough to consume him. Then, one of the guards came in, carrying a phone. “Your lawyer,” he informed Hannibal and plugged in the phone. Hannibal looked at the device, calculating, and took the call when the guard had left the room. What followed was a conversation Will couldn't decipher. His voice was soft, low, a murmur, and Will knew that was the point exactly. No one was supposed to hear, and Will felt his inside clench with the knowledge of not knowing. The conversation lasted six minutes, nearly seven, before Hannibal ended the call. The phone was collected and Hannibal returned to his bed.

Will closed the laptop with a final push of his hand. There was more to be seen, he knew. His phone call to Hannibal must have been recorded too. But he had had enough. All there was left on that disc was pain. Hannibal's and his own, and he couldn't bare anymore. He felt spent, in so many ways. What he really wanted, more than anything, was to hold him, and to smell him and to breathe into his neck just to feel him close. Will slid between the sheets, his shirt still open around his shoulders. He would be strong again tomorrow, he decided. For now, he could desire all those things. Tomorrow, he would be strong enough to arrange his flight back home.

As the clock ticked, and Will's eyes never closed, he tried not to think about how this was the first night without him that they hadn't talked on the phone. He turned his back to the motel phone on his nightstand and ordered himself not to keep an ear out, but even well after three, he still heard how the room stayed silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi beauties! Thank you so much for the Happy Thanksgiving wishes I got last week! ^.^I hope you all had an amazing time, no matter if you celebrated it or not! I live in the Netherlands, so I didn't get any turkey ;-) But I get to celebrate Sinterklaas this weekend, so I guess we all got something ^.^!!  
> This chapter....what can I say? Some smut? But solo smut, which was also a tiny bit sad? I hope you enjoyed it none the less, and I know I make people sad by stomping on sweet Will every chapter but I hope you are willing to come back next week and.......no, no spoilers :-P But stuff is gonna happen, I promise! I just hope you enjoyed it! <3 You guys are the best! I brag about you at birthday parties! All my love!


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jack,” Will said, surprised to see the familiar face on the other side of the threshold. Jack Crawford, with his coat and his hat and those dark eyes that could pierce a hole into your sense of self-worth. The sight of him was out of place, so far away from the old Will Graham. “Hello, Will,” Jack said, eyes straight unto his, and Will remembered with a cold jolt that the agent had been there when he'd presented inside the prison. He had witnessed how Will wailed for his Alpha, leaked slick on the hospital sheets and arched his hips into the air in search for contact. And that was before he was pushed into that cell with his mate where they had wasted no time devouring each other in front of whomever had wished to be a spectator. Will didn't know how long Jack had stayed to witness, but the memory was one of the many reasons Will couldn't answer that stare with one of his own.

The loud knock on the door made Will's whole body tense. His eyes shifted sharply from the phone in his hand to the direction of the offensive noise, made by heavy knuckles against thick, painted wood. He had been in the middle of writing a text message to Molly, but instantly slid the black device back into his pocket as he stood up from the bed and squinted his eyes. Who knew he was here? Alana knew. The person who had broken into his room did, too. He hesitated, deliberating whether he could just pretend not be in, but the knuckles rapped on his door again and he felt himself moving towards the intrusive, demanding sound. Before it could slice through his splitting head a third time, he opened the door.

“Jack,” Will said, surprised to see the familiar face on the other side of the threshold. Jack Crawford, with his coat and his hat and those dark eyes that could pierce a hole into your sense of self-worth. The sight of him was out of place, so far away from the old Will Graham. “Hello, Will,” Jack said, eyes straight unto his, and Will remembered with a cold jolt that the agent had been there when he'd presented inside the prison. He had witnessed how Will wailed for his Alpha, leaked slick on the hospital sheets and arched his hips into the air in search for contact. And that was before he was pushed into that cell with his mate where they had wasted no time devouring each other in front of whomever had wished to be a spectator. Will didn't know how long Jack had stayed to witness, but the memory was one of the many reasons Will couldn't answer that stare with one of his own.

They shook hands, with Jack's so much bigger and sturdier against his weak, clammy flesh. “Take a walk with me,” Jack said, and Will found the courage to look up and see the imposing special agent regarding him without a lick of self-consciousness, embarrassment or even the imaginable disgust. Jack didn't look at him with pity. He didn't look at him in a different light. Jack Crawford doesn't judge, not when you are of use to him. “Alright,” Will blinked rapidly and quickly collected his coat before stepping outside and following after Jack, who had already turned towards the park. For a brief moment, Will considered asking him to change direction, but the words died on his tongue with those first, alleviating steps, and he silently fell in line.

They kept their hands buried in their pockets as they walked through the quiet streets. Not a gush of wind was present to ruffle hair or sooth the stuffy heat beneath Will's skin, as his eyes flashed up to the gray, cloudy sky. “So, how are you?”, Jack asked him in his low baritone, turning his head towards Will, who quickly flung his gaze back to his shoes. “I'm...-”, he paused, brushing back his greasy curls with both hands. He never did have that shower, even now the scent of Hannibal had nearly faded from his skin. “Yes. This is all a big, big mess,” Jack filled in, a curt but sympathetic nod directed his way as Will dug his hands back deeper in his coat. ”But we'll figure this out,” Jack said, determined, his voice a low boom of confidence. “We will find a way to end this for you. We will find a cure, a solution...” Jack moved his hands in opposite circles to illustrate how his words would continue in a string of different phrases with the same, exact meaning.

Will smiled bitterly into the pulled up collar of his coat. His skin was burning, but the thick fabric made him feel shielded, an extra layer between himself and the world. “That sounds like you're planning on offing one of us, Jack,” he said airily, and Jack watched him with a stern, slow frown, and a resolved, tight line around his mouth. “You must know that if it's necessary to ensure your survival, I'm willing to find a way...”, he paused meaningfully as his shoulder bumped against Will's. Their footsteps never slowed during the conversation, but Will took an unconscious step sideways at the words near his ear, and created new distance between them. “That wouldn't cure anything,” he quickly interjected before Jack could speak the words Will knew rested behind his tongue. “It would only make things worse.” Will swallowed against the tight feeling inside his mouth and sucked the back of his bottom lip between his teeth. It wasn't a lie. Killing Hannibal would mean his own demise, in many ways. He would either die right along with him, or he would waste away until the moment came. More truthfully, he didn't want Hannibal to die. Not now, not then, not truly ever. As he predicted Jack's words inside his head, it became more and more a struggle to stop himself from snarling his teeth bare, as both Omega and man.

Jack sighed a heavy sigh as they strolled under the rustling trees of the park and he reached out to rest a large hand on Will's weak shoulder. “I promise you...”, he started, his voice carrying a slice of something that hearkened back to an old, personal vendetta and the anger inside Will rose higher. It rose with every sympathetic, misunderstanding touch and glance that fell upon him. It rose with every personal agenda disguised as a helping hand. He snapped before he could stop himself. “Jack,” he bit, pulling the agent out of his intentions as both men stopped in their tracks. Jack's hand fell away from him as they simultaneously turned towards each other and the FBI agent regarded him with harder, more calculating eyes. Will knew how much the man had always depended on his authority. He demanded respect, leadership, control, and received it without effort. No one dared to go against the loud persona of the special agent. 

But the Omega within Will arched his back and paced protectively around his throbbing brain. There was no tolerance for authority over Will Graham. There was no place for new leadership within his pack. 

“I don't need help,” Will said, calming his voice and lowering his shoulders as he returned Jack's pointed stare with as much confidence as he could musher. The agent's nose jerked around the wings and his mouth pulled tight. “You've seen better days, Will,” he said, stepping back into the pace of their previous stroll as Will followed beside him. “Yeah,” he huffed through his nose. He had seen himself in the mirror this morning and he knew what he looked like. Every day was worse. His color was a mix between parchment white and infection-red, his eyes were sunken inside a blend of gray and purple, and his veins popped blue and black beneath his truculent skin. Even with his facial hair neatly trimmed, and his greasy hair combed, he knew he had never looked closer to death. “I've seen better decades, Jack,” he spoke dryly and Jack threw him a hard glare.

“This situation worries me,” he said, his expression stern and tight as he tried to keep their eyes connected and undoubtedly spear a point through his special agent Will. Will didn't look away this time, not feeling the heavy blanket of Jack's disapproval equally smothering as he once had. “You've always been drawn to Hannibal Lecter,” Jack said accusingly, and Will clenched his fingers tighter in his pockets. It was Jack Crawford, after all, who had been kind enough to introduce them. “I remember you once told me you had wanted to run away with him, and that part of you still did.” Will smiled despite himself as Jack's words rang out in tight, quiet confusion. He hid his lips behind his collar. Jack had never truly allowed himself to trust Will after that confession, he knew. 

The agent seemed to ponder his own words for a moment, before he turned his dark eyes back to Will. “I am wondering about that part of you, now,” he said, deliberately careful with his tone, as if trying to lure a wild beast out of its cage. The Omega nudged at his insides and Will felt every limb grow heavier, sour, as they walked. “Part of me still does, Jack,” he said, honest with him and honest with himself. Will knew there had always been that part of him, and it would forever remain. That part that wanted to leave the world behind and sink into the darkness with the one person that made him feel alight. But he fought it every step of the way, as he had clearly shown by now. He had learned to live without Hannibal, and he would continue just that. For Molly. For...

“I've been thinking about this a lot, Will. I've been trying to understand,” Jack said as he pulled his hat off his head, twisting it in his large hands as they passed the duck pond. “And I think I finally get it.” A homeless man stared miserably at two screaming toddlers and what looked like their grandmother, feeding the birds a fresh loaf of bread. “It's the animal in you that wants this,” the agent said, and Will's eyes briefly shot back to him before he returned them to the shrieking ducks. “It's not you, Will. It never was you who wanted to take part in this. Even back then, it was the beast.”

Will rubbed a thumb over an eyebrow as they strolled past traveling people, leashed dogs, children on their little bicycles. He closed his eyes for a brief second, and saw himself back in the snow, confessing his desires to Jack. His betrayal. Jack had lost an ally in him, someone he could mindlessly thrust back and forth inside his circle. Jack's ego, his judgment, had received quite a blow that day. His pride had been bruised, and he blamed himself for the mistake in thinking he understood the special agent he saw in Will. It was failure, and Jack Crawford didn't do failure. He never had, and then along came Hannibal. Will's lips twitched again against his coat. This theory where Will was nothing but a slave to his Omega, forcing him to choose Hannibal when nothing in his human mind had desired it, was indeed a very flattering solution for Jack's writhing ego. No one to blame but Hannibal Lecter. “You've been doing a lot of thinking,” Will said, instead of the thousand other things he could have said.

“Yes,” Jack replied, his voice raised with growing enthusiasm as they swayed to avoid someone on roller skates. “And I've been researching ways to control and numb the animal gender within a person, or even destroy that part of the brain completely. There are people that claim...”, he chatted, gesturing wilder and wider with his arms as he spoke. But Will was sick, he was weak and still infused with a liquid pain that crept in every corner of his flesh. He was here, weak on his legs and mindlessly exhausted, listening to the booming voice of his former employer about cutting out a piece of his brain. “...electrodes are attached to both temples, and then...” His Omega started gnawing at the floorboards of the attic, huffing hot breath and scraping its claws against damaged wood until Will felt the sharp, slicing splinters as if they were under his own fingernails. It felt like the reins were slipping from his hands. Dr. Hammings, Alana, Jack, if he let it happen he would be swooped up and hospitalized, probed and cut and medicated until his insides were empty.“Jack,” he said, and never before had anyone dared to interrupt this man, this many times in one conversation, Will was certain of it. Jack looked at him with discontent, but kept himself composed as fingers pressed into the rim of his hat. He wasn't going to yell, Will realized. He must have decided on that before hand.

“I am not running away with him,” Will said, eyes meeting eyes as the two men crossed another quiet street. “I'm going back to my family in a couple of days.” Jack blinked back at him, visibly grinding the words over in his head. “Oh,” he then said. “That's good.” He gave one short nod, but kept restless fingers on his hat, staring straight ahead of him. Will felt one eye flinching at the lukewarm response his civil intentions received, coming from the man who had just half-suggested to lobotomize him. He felt the prickle of irritation on the back of his neck, but instead replied with; “I appreciate your concern and your help, Jack”, and gave the large man a half-hearted nod in return. Jack tilted his head, as a shrug touched his broad shoulders. “Of course,” he said, showing Will his rounded profile against the stark, gray sky. Will knew that Jack would never understand the scenario where someone would not indulge in his help, his attention, and chose his next words carefully.

“I need time to see how things will play out,” he said, trying to keep himself steady and sure on his near-crumbling bones. “I need to know if I can handle this on my own.” He dared to face Jack, eyes steady, and watched the emotions play out on the sturdy face before him. First there was that ever-present frown, a pinch of annoyance, probably due to the lack of enthusiasm. But the hard muscles softened as he looked back at Will, undoubtedly seeing nothing but the weakness and the paleness and the imposed vulnerability. “Just know that you are not alone,” Jack said and Will felt a shudder at the kindness that was offered beneath the clumsy conversation. People, they wanted to connect with him. They wanted to be let into his life and touch what lay beyond the veil, drawn in by the pain, the mystery, the helplessness he seemed to excrete. Only one of them had made it to the other side. And that one, he had his own veil, his own barrier that had fallen under Will's touch. He nodded, offering Jack a half-smile as he kicked a lost tennis ball away from his feet. Maybe it belonged to the blond lab, on the other side of the pond. It only rolled a few turns away. Fuck, he was weak.

“I'll be fine,” Will promised the agent with a smile that turned down at the corners, and he quickly pushed his hands in his pockets, his face behind his collar. Ahead of them, he could see the roof of the hospital rising above the treetops and he felt a pull below his bellybutton. “I'm sure you've got bigger fish to fry,” he said offhandedly into his coat, as he tried to stop dragging his feet along the road. At that, Jack clapped his hands together and Will almost jumped at the sudden sound. “Yes, which is also why I came to see you,” the agent confessed with meaningful eyes and Will felt cold, and soaked, and tired, as he swallowed at the fire that suddenly burned bright in Jack's dark eyes. He wanted to be left alone, but he had the feeling there were strings coming out of his back that people kept pulling whenever he tried to find his footing. He blinked when Jack took a rolled up file from the inside of his coat. “I have a murder scene I want you to look at,” he said, undisturbed. “Two adults, two children, shards of mirror in their eyes. It's unmistakably the Tooth Fairy's work and I need you to...”, but Will's blood turned cold at the memory of the pictures Jack had showed him of the previous murder scene. Dead faces, mirror eyes, blood on pale skin.

“No,” he interrupted the agent, the word hitching in his dry mouth as he averted his gaze downwards. Jack paused mid sentence. “No?”, the agent repeated, disbelieving, confused, trying hard not to show his displeasure. Will took his clammy hands from his pockets and wrung them together as he looked at Jack from beneath his damp curls. “I can't. Jack, I'm not ready for that. I'm still...” He stuttered, but Jack shook his head as he opened his hands and softened his stern expression. “I'm not asking anything of you other than to try,” he said, assuringly and confident, as if Will had already given his consent. “Just go in, have a look, see what happens. Nothing more, nothing less.” The sentence ended with a period. Done. Will felt his vision blurring around the edges.

“I'm giving you less. I'm sorry Jack,” Will almost choked, watching dark eyebrows rising in response. Jack closed his eyes briefly, regrouping, as he pressed his lips together. “You don't know if you've lost your talent until you try, Will,” the agent spoke, trying for soothing but succeeding in urging. “Maybe it will be a good distraction...” White foam formed around his Omega's sharp teeth as eyes flashed bright in the dark attic. “A good distraction?”, Will nearly cried, shock now coloring his voice as he watched his own eyebrows coming down into his line of vision. The FBI agent quickly nodded his head sideways, bringing nuance to his words with an impatient hand gesture. “I mean to say that maybe going back to work will take your mind off certain...”

Will clacked his tongue within his tightened jaw. “Nothing good can come of this, Jack. I have no room for another serial killer inside my head,” he said, hurrying his step as they crossed the street. The hospital was a flight of stairs away, and Will felt his hand quivering, his lips trembling. “Not anymore.” Jack met his gaze, but Will could only feel his annoyance, his incomprehension, and looked in the opposite direction instead. He looked right into the building, and felt his ears flow over with the wild rush of a dangerous stream. He was so close. “I see,” Jack replied stiffly. “I'm sorry you feel that way.” But Will could barely hear him. He felt so strongly reeled in from the opposite direction. His legs felt like they didn't belong to him anymore, his insides were boiling, and his vision was washed over with one image only. Hannibal, behind the glass. He could still see how his mate had stared at the ceiling for hours on end, how he had paced from left to right, hands clenched at his sides. Inside, the Omega whimpered, flat on his belly and chin to the floor. His strength was quickly fleeting.

Jack slowed his pace, coming to a halt before the steps of the hospital as he turned to face Will. His hand reached back into his pocket, and this time, he held an envelope between his thick fingers. “Would you at least look at these pictures and tell me what you see,” he said, unfolding the paper and reaching in to pull out a series of colorful images that showed flashes of dirty blond hair, cut, pink flesh, bullet holes, hollow sockets. Will felt the blazing heat within him sealed in by merciless ice that crusted upon his skin. There was nothing there but cold blood and open flesh, lifeless skin, purple and blue and rusty red. Everything hurt. Everything hurt. And Will had nothing left within to fight, or protect.

“No. No, I have to go,” he said, his voice strained in his narrow throat as he took a step away from the gore in Jack's hand. “I have to make a visit.” Jack frowned at the unsteadiness Will knew he radiated, as much in flesh as in mind, as his eyes flashed up to the entrance of the hospital towards which Will's body kept swaying.

“You're meeting with Hannibal?”, he asked him, bewildered, and Will swallowed at the plunge he felt inside his stomach at the name. His breath was shallow, his face was wet, his pain was tight like that of blood streaming back into limbs after hours without circulation. “Yes,” he said, lips jerking around the sound and Jack rubbed his own wrist with his thumb as he stared back at him. “That concerns me,” he repeated himself, superciliously and autiritarian, and Will felt a nauseating stab of anger flare when Jack never lowered the hand that offered the pictures. He quickly shook his head, trying to drown the whimpers of the pleading animal inside him. “The contact between us has to be reduced gradually, for medical reasons,” he spoke the words that had once been spoken to him, impressively so around his quivering insides. His open shrug feigned a casual attitude, but Will knew there was no one left to fool.

“I see,” Jack said, his mouth stern but his eyes openly worried when Will made his way to the stone steps of the stairs with feet that dragged rather than walked. “See you around, Jack,” he said, stumbling on his feet as he tried to walk away with confident steps he didn't have the strength for. Jack regarded him, his eyebrows low on his forehead. “Do you need...?”, he started, trying to step closer to Will as he reached out a helping arm, but Will quickly stepped away. “I'm fine,” he said, knowing he was boarding on sounding hysterical when his voice came out too loud and too high. “We'll talk later.” He turned away, taking another step up before Jack appeared beside him, handing over the envelope with the pictures and pushing them between Will's weak fingers. “Here, show these to Hannibal,” he said. “See if he knows something.”

Will gripped the envelope mindlessly in his hand and went, without looking back, going up, up, up until Jack had disappeared from his vision, far behind his back. “Take care, Will. I'll be in touch,” he heard the booming voice behind his back, but never turned to see him leave. He felt stranded in wild water, dragged down by heavy weight, and he was quickly growing so, so tired. When he reached the door, soaked with sweat, pale with exhaustion, he quickly made his way inside and passed through security without exchanging a single word with any of the guards. They eyed him with concern, but no one commented when he took off his coat and showed his clothes soaked as though he had dived into that duck pond. The pictures in the envelope were handed back to him without a question, and Will briefly wondered how many privileges he had indeed been given.

He walked into the hallway and went straight to the staircase that led down into the basement. He was near stumbling, unsteady, his vision swaying like waves of the ocean. Before he could reach the stairs, someone fell in line with his fast, wobbly steps. “Dennis,” Will nodded when the guard touched his shoulder and slowed him down, by u-turning his body in front of the Omega. “Mr. Graham. Good to see you back so soon, Sir,” the guard said, a smile on his face but concern obvious in his eyes at Will's dazed expression. Will tried to step around him, brushing against the strong shoulder that didn't give way as Dennis' hand came to rest on his collarbone. “Mr. Graham, you can't just...”, the guard spoke, looking straight into Will's red-rimmed eyes. Clear blues darted over Will's wet, pasty skin, his twitching muscles, his quivering lips and Dennis breathed sharply through his nose.

“I'll arrange a visit, right away, Sir,” he said, reaching for the walkie-talkie on his belt. “Or do you wish for something else? I could call Alana...” But Will's breath hitched as his knees buckled under his weight. His feet felt numb in his shoes, like he had been sitting on them for too long. “No,” he said between his teeth, pushing the air out with all his might. Dennis didn't ask any more, but instead talked into his walkie talkie, turning away as he mumbled some instructions to restrain Hannibal Lecter. “Walk with me,” he spoke right after, his hand never leaving Will's back, supporting the anemic Omega as he led him down the stairs.

And the walk was familiar, fresh in his memory from only the other day. He knew the corridors, he knew the rows of glass and the leering vermin on the other side. But while the scent of sweat and piss and vomit swept through the isolated space, Will could only smell the expanding trail of fire and snow that beckoned. And he wasn't turning away, or hesitant. His mind had melted to nothing but its core, and there was only one remaining need. Regrets were for later, but his survival counted now.

Before the door was opened, Will already had his cheek pressed against the cold steel and his quivering fingers scratching the surface. Inside, he heard his mate breathing a low roar, and he felt Dennis' hand on his shoulders as he clicked open the lock. “Easy. Stay calm,” he warned Will with a soothing whisper and opened the door.

And inside, Will saw everything.

Hannibal's hands were bound with sturdy cuffs through the glass holes. His back was towards him, but his head was already whipped to the side as his nostrils flared. On the outside, he was still and calm, controlled, but Will could feel the waves of heat pounding off of his tense shoulders. “Hello Will,” he spoke calmly the moment the Omega put a foot over the threshold. The scent, the sound, it was enough to make them both feel light in their limbs and heavy in their core, and before their eyes could even meet, Will could already feel his head rolling loosely on his shoulders from the melting tension in his back. Within the cell were three guards, all holding Hannibal at gunpoint. One was beside Dennis, while the other two were inside the glass prison with the Alpha.

“Hello, Doctor Lecter,” Dennis answered for him, his voice polite, if not a little wavering. He was nervous, standing so close to the criminal, Will knew. Hannibal moved his head to the other side, just enough to catch the eyes of the guard. “Dennis. Thank you for bringing in my Omega,” he spoke pleasantly, and Will tensed when he saw his Alpha's temple painted with dark purple veins. Dennis fingered the gun on his belt. “I will let him into your cell, but I need you to be calm. You will not move until the door is closed and your cuffs have been taken off, do you understand?” The blond guard spoke, as he held on to Will's shoulder. “Calm,” he repeated in Will's direction and the Omega nodded mindlessly without taking his eyes off his mate. “Certainly,” Hannibal said, and Will's stomach fluttered so hard he was happy to have skipped breakfast. 

Then, there was a hand on his arm leading him in. With all guns drawn, Will stepped inside the cell and came into the line of vision of his Alpha, chained to the wall he was resting his back against. And fuck, the amber set him alight in an instant. His Omega roared back to life at the nearness and the needles in his bloodstream shriveled at the sight. Will heard himself moan openly at the bliss that filled him, and not once could he find himself to care. Hannibal in turn, growled low in his throat and curled his upper lip.

“Easy,” Dennis warned again as he released Will with a squeeze to his shoulder and backed out of the cell with the other guards as they kept their guns pointed at Hannibal. Will stayed put, even when everyone had moved to the other side of the glass and the door was safely shut. He watched Hannibal with eyes that wouldn't focus as life spread slowly into his dying flesh. Hannibal stayed still, waiting patiently as they clicked the handcuffs from his wrists, and brought his arms back out, holding them to his body. He looked thinner, frailer then ever, and his fiery glow of bronze had turned a pasty white that hid the scars on his skin. He too was a pallet of whites and grays, reds and blues. The heavy door closed, and they were alone. They were as alone as anyone could be with that red dot in the corner of the ceiling pressing down upon them.

Will would have taken a moment to think of Molly, had he found her within whatever was left of him in that moment, but instead he stepped forward, slowly raising out an arm to reach for the one thing that could make it all better. His mate, his Alpha. Hannibal. “Hannibal,” he heard himself break, his voice raw as he took another step closer, bringing up the other arm beside his body. And he was there, like a wrecking ball. Within the second, strong arms came to catch him, hold him, cocoon and shelter him as a warm, solid body pressed entirely to his own. And they both whimpered, they both moaned, they both cried in relief when the ceiling of their mental prison came down and brought back the sun and the warmth and the light. The pain was gone. The beasts purred like kittens.

A searching nose nudged against Will's throat as the Omega rubbed his face against Hannibal's temple and folded his arms tight around his shoulders. Inside him, the splinters of his bones were restored seamlessly, as his skin, once overheated and raw, now sang with a perfect, supple fit. He felt swallowed whole in their embrace and heard a sob coming from his own throat when broad hands rubbed gently along the length of his back. “I have you,” Hannibal rumbled in his ear, the words like liquid love, pouring over the empty, hollow ache in his chest. 

Hannibal had all of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi beautiful Fannibals!
> 
> There is nothing I want to do more right now then thank everyone for reading and coming back and reviewing and making me laugh and giving me all this love and support and interesting stuff to think about! I am so incredibly grateful!! I was feeling a little insecure lately because I received a couple of negative Pm's and messages over the past few weeks, and sensitive as I am (and wished I wasn't), I felt really bummed out by those. But every Wednesday I respond to the reviews and the messages I get, and as I was reading and replying to you yesterday I realized how truly, amazingly blessed I am and I really shouldn't pay more attention to the negative when I have so much to be happy and grateful for! SO thank you all so much, it means the world to me and without you I wouldn't have reached chapter 20! Milestone! ;-) In conclusion, Love you all! Truly, I appreciate you!! And I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :-P Jack is back! And he is Jacky-er than ever! Also, Hannibal!!! Hugs!!! Hannibal hugs!!!!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Jesus,” Will panted hard when he finally found the strength to tear himself away. He didn't step back, but looked at Hannibal from a nose distance as he felt steadying hands spreading protectively on his back. Will's breathing was fast and uneven as he watched his Alpha's face before him, skin flushed, lips swollen, hair disheveled. His golden eyes were blown wide and rimmed red and it was a most familiar sight that wrung Will's insides tight. “You asked me to stop,” Hannibal spoke evenly between labored breaths as his finger flexed with poorly hidden tension. Will stared back at him with his hazy, unfocused eyes and swayed on his legs. Hannibal. He was here, with Hannibal. Somehow, the journey of how that came to be was like looking through thick steam in a wet sauna. “I think I'm losing my mind,” Will shakily confessed before he lowered his forehead to the Alpha's shoulder and closed his eyes.

Every part of Will Graham bathed in a stream of pure, weightless gold that wrapped around him hot and thick as blood, and sealed into his pores by tight, tangible bliss. He felt freed from his narrow, flesh-made prison, and all the agony that housed inside him dripped down to pool around his feet. Suddenly, he was safe, and kept, and warm, which catered exactly to all of his most primal, quintessential desires. He closed his eyes and almost swayed to the rhythm of life that flooded them in a mixture of heat and breath, scent and noise, as the Omega inside him purred his happiness, eyes shut and ears flat. Hannibal and Will folded together, pressing close and searching closer, inside a world where nothing else was given room to exist. Their hands didn't grab, but needily pushed and pulled the other nearer as neither one of them was willing to let any more space exist between them. 

Will nudged his nose under Hannibal's chin, allowing the Omega in him to take over in mindless desire to scent his mate, who in turn tilted his head to give access to the bare skin of his throat. The contact was warm, like cocooning blankets filled with body heat on a chilly winter morning, and Will pressed his face deep into the tender, welcoming skin to smell the fresh air of snow-covered trees and the burned, black wood inside a smoldering campfire. Intoxicating, reviving and destructive.

A low rumble vibrated through both their chests as the beasts inside them rejoiced in their reunion. Hannibal's Alpha nuzzled his head along the Omega's soft fur, as the Omega huffed his nose along the row of sharp fangs behind the Alpha's lips and bumped his head against his mate's pointed ear. 

Will's eyes rolled back in his sockets as he became lost in a state of absolute euphoria. He felt like he had finally been sewn back together and smoothened out along the seams after being torn limb from limb from fucking limb. “God,” he sobbed as Hannibal's breath brushed against his ear and he knew for certain that the only reason he was still upright was because he was huddled against strong muscles that caught and corrected his wobbling weight. Will pressed his mouth to the hot skin beneath his mate's ear in a feral need for closeness, and tasted the fiery musk against his open lips. Hannibal quivered against the careful touch and roamed his hands passionately over the dips and creases of Will's clothed back and shoulders, as if it fueled something deeper inside him. Will heard the air rushing inside his mate's lungs as he breathed deeply into his hair, and he brought out his tongue to feel the pulsing artery that pumped wild beneath Hannibal's skin. Flat hands rubbed firmly from Will's lower back to the curve of his hips as the Omega reached further to follow the rhythm of the thrumming blood with an open, searching mouth. A light stubble chafed the tip of his tongue as he grazed Hannibal's jawline and, as if entranced, moved open kisses to the corner of the Alpha's wet, parted lips. 

In this moment, Will allowed himself to be dissolved inside his beast, body and spirit, and experienced nothing but striking beauty as his Alpha's breath ghosted against his cheek and large hands ran encouragingly up and down his prominent ribs. The Omega carted his fingers through soft, silk hair on the back of Hannibal's neck before he slid their lips together and opened his blown, veined, ocean eyes. He met the gold and blood of Hannibal's open stare as they stood together, nose sliding against nose, entangled and flushed, breathing each other in so deeply it swirled hot in their core. Bathing in each other's scent as if existing as one. 

It wasn't a kiss, there was no pressure behind the touch as both watched the other, felt the other, and simply breathed. Conjoined like this, pure and primal, Will could have wept at what it moved inside of him, if he hadn't already used up all those tears in the previous days. Now, all he wanted to do was smile, and his lips stretched wider against Hannibal's who followed the pull of his lips with his own. The wrinkles around those tightening, gold eyes deepened, and Will felt something above his bellybutton twisting in weakness. It was only after that moment of stillness, that Will's tongue came to taste along his Alpha's lips and Hannibal wrung his hands into Will's shirt, opening his mouth to meet his mate's bold touch. 

And, God yes, Will melted into the connection with fluttering eyes, falling and feeling boneless against the strong Alpha's arms as he pressed their mouths together into a true kiss, and shared moans that rolled from one tongue to the other. Hannibal licked gently along Will's dry lower lip and suddenly they slid together, smooth and easy as they pulled softly and tugged gently, coaxing and nudging and shyly begging against the other's skin. Soft, so soft still, that Will's moans turned into hopeless whimpers that made the puffs of hot air rushing from his nose stroke desperately against Hannibal's cheek.

The Alpha's tongue brushed against his lips before slipping fully into the wet heat of his mouth, and greeting him with a gentle, daring stroke against his short fangs. Will moaned deeply into Hannibal's mouth at the pleasure the kiss sparked deep inside his belly, and held on to his Alpha's shoulders to prevent himself from slipping as he met his gentle persuasion by licking wholly against the roof of Hannibal's mouth. 

And then it turned wild.

Open mouths pressed together, hard and needy and completely as their tongues found each other, deep and pliant without submission. Their noses pressed against cheeks in a desperate attempt to get even closer and Will's fingers fisted along the sides of Hannibal's jumpsuit with real and primal strength. They both groaned hot against the other as the Alpha grabbed Will fully by the back of his neck and entwined his fingers tightly in his mate's curls to keep him close. Will could feel Hannibal's low growls trembling in the back of his own throat and he cried openly into his mate's mouth, making the vibration rush through both their bodies at once. He couldn't stop moving his fingers against silver hair and hot skin, mostly hidden by that god-awful jumpsuit which obstructed his hands from wandering where they wished to go.

The contact, the relief and the joy, it was... “God.” Will's eyes rolled back in his head when Hannibal's sharp teeth pulled gently at his bottom lip while hot hands slid up over the front of his shirt and burned the skin of his heaving chest through the cotton layers. They grazed his belly, his ribs, his hidden, peaked nipples and the hollow of his throat as Will arched and sagged into the touch with full surrender and unsteady, high-pitched whimpers. Wet lips moved to mouth along Will's cheekbone, his temple, the shell of his ear and the Omega trembled hard as he let his head fall back to give his mate full access to his sensitive neck. “Yes. Please.” He clawed at Hannibal's back with desperate hands and nails as his mate's hungry lips nipped at the skin below his earlobe with a hint of sharp teeth. A wet tongue licked down his throat and Will's eyelids fluttered wild as the fire that already burned deep inside his belly roared and spread down hot into his loins. “God. Oh God.”

That was when it flew into his vision. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Will's eyes opened wide at the sudden, awakening sight before him. It was a hideous pain in the midst of perfect pleasure. It was a bucket of ice inside the steaming bathtub. A rude awakening from a perfect dream. It hit him like the aim of a sniper, as it flashed hot on his retina. In the corner of his eye, high on the ceiling, he could see it. That fucking red dot. 

“No. Stop,” Will heard himself moan weakly as he cupped his Alpha's face with both his hands in an attempt to halt his movements. They needed to separate. Something inside him shouted it, muted, like it was coming from behind a thick wall of glass. But the moment Hannibal's blown eyes came into his vision, he instantly plunged forward to lick greedily along his mate's sharp fangs. This was Hannibal, his Alpha, his mate. Everything else faded as he pulled the face in his hands as close as he could and kissed sloppily along the pink, swollen lips that rested against his. He felt the body against him losing tension as hands fell from Will's hair and soft lips stopped moving alongside his. Fuck. Desperate anger rose inside the Omega as he pushed himself tighter against his mate, lifting a leg around his hip while he fisted his hands violently into Hannibal's hair and breathed hot against his mouth. God, fuck, shit, Will hated that loathsome, horrifying red dot. He hated it with all his... 

Will sucked the Alpha's lip into his mouth and challengingly bit down with his teeth as his hands slid from the top of Hannibal's head to the side of his ribs, nipping and licking and kissing along the Alpha's slack mouth and jaw. Moments filled with touching and moaning and biting were fueled by all that overpowering need that bubbled inside, before he could allow himself to notice how his Alpha no longer responded, and had refrained from touching him in return, other than the supporting hands on his back. The anger in Will spiked hotter as he tasted blood on his tongue when he pressed a fang into Hannibal's lower lip, probing for a reaction that didn't come. What followed was silence as he slowly deflated, deflated, leaving him gasping with a trembling weakness that overpowered everything else. 

“Jesus,” Will panted hard when he finally found the strength to tear himself away. He didn't step back, but looked at Hannibal from a nose distance as he felt steadying hands spreading protectively on his back. Will's breathing was fast and uneven as he watched his Alpha's face before him, skin flushed, lips swollen, hair disheveled. His golden eyes were blown wide and rimmed red and it was a most familiar sight that wrung Will's insides tight. “You asked me to stop,” Hannibal spoke evenly between labored breaths as his finger flexed with poorly hidden tension. Will stared back at him with his hazy, unfocused eyes and swayed on his legs. Hannibal. He was here, with Hannibal. Somehow, the journey of how that came to be was like looking through thick steam in a wet sauna. “I think I'm losing my mind,” Will shakily confessed before he lowered his forehead to the Alpha's shoulder and closed his eyes. 

Will's hands gripped tight into the fabric against Hannibal's back and the smile he felt against his temple was one of rueful recognition as the Alpha sighed deep from his belly. “You're very weak,” he said into Will's hair as he kept them both upright with strong, bulging arms. Will dug his nails deep into the pale cotton between his fingers and felt the tremor in the muscles that rested around him. “So are you,” he swallowed against the shoulder that held his head. His Alpha stepped back, folded one arm around Will's body and slipped his hand beneath his armpit. “Come,” he said, before he led them to the single bed by the wall, supporting almost all of the Omega's weight. He lowered his mate to be seated on the mattress with his back against the wall, and Will felt himself sagging into the hard brick that rested against his spine. Hannibal followed beside him, dipping the mattress with his weight, and Will was wrapped into a two-arm embrace as his legs were turned sideways to bend over Hannibal's. One gentle hand pressed to Will's temple, until his nose came to rest in the hollow of his mate's collarbone.

And then there was silence. Will melted against the curve of Hannibal's shoulder as the Alpha stroked one lazy hand through Will's unruly mop of curls. It was healing him from the deepest dark of his rotting roots and the heavy weakness in his bones stirred under the gentle caress. “Hannibal...”, Will murmured weakly against his Alpha's skin that he was currently wetting with his open lips. “Let me hold you,” came the soft rumble of his mate against his ear, and Will closed his eyes, allowing himself to be defeated and accepting Hannibal's effort to cure him from the black pain that had worn him like a tight-fitting suit. Only yesterday, Will had refused him this very request. Now, he nudged his nose under his mate's earlobe and drifted into slumber to the beat of Hannibal's slowing heart. 

**

When Will's body stirred back to life and his eyelids fluttered against the artificial light from the ceiling, he found himself inside that same, strong embrace made of Alpha arms. He hadn't moved his head from Hannibal's shoulder, and the collar of the prison jumpsuit felt soggy against his open mouth. “Ugh,” he shifted himself half-heartedly from the damp spot on the fabric as he brought a hand up to wipe at the drool on his lips. The air around them was filled with a joint rumble, erupting from within them both, as their lungs in- and deflated in a rhythm that fitted their chests together like the lazy waves of a gentle ocean. Fingers stroked lightly through his hair as he blinked and twisted his shoulders inside the protective hold on him. 

“Ohh,” he moaned when his mind started to catch up with his senses and the white prison walls slowly became less blurry around him. He tried to lift his head as his fingers hooked into the fabric that covered Hannibal's upper arms, and pulled back a face that felt entirely flattened from hair to skin to skull, where he had been pressed into a sharp, strong collarbone. And he remembered without a moment's hesitation where he was and how he had gotten there. Nothing about the chiming bells in his bloodstream and the sunlight in the attic of his mind could ever let him forget. “Hannibal,” he croaked sleepily into his Alpha's neck and two hands found his face and hair with warm, stroking fingers. “Shh,” soft lips brushed against his ear.”You've only slept a short hour,” Hannibal's voice caressed him as those gentle hands led Will's head to settle back against the Alpha's rumbling chest. 

He was with Hannibal. Will's eyes flickered up and watched those familiar lips, visible over the curve of his chin. He saw the straight nose with the even nostrils. He saw the sharp angle of the cheekbone and the small wrinkles that settled kindly into the pale skin. He was so close, so real and warm. He was that reaching hand when your last fingers loosen their grip on the edge of a steep, steep cliff. And despite the gray exhaustion on his complexion, the purple veins beneath his cheeks, the dull skin on his cracked lips and the purple glow around his gums, Will could see a real shimmer of burning life inside his mate. A spark that danced inside him just the same, so near his Alpha mate. 

“An hour,” he murmured, pushing himself back up against Hannibal's guiding touch to keep him close, and resting his head back on his own shoulders as he came eye to eye with the Alpha. That liquid amber shone bright inside the sunken sockets and Will knew he could feel the quiver that vibrated beneath his skin. “Have you been sleeping properly?”, Hannibal asked him, his voice deeper with exhaustion as he eyed his mate critically and with open concern. He, too, must have seen the way his mate was slowly perishing. Will moved his eyes to the neat, empty prison and felt a small pang of deep familiarity. They had shared everything here. They had shared every part of themselves, wholly and completely. In abandon. On this very bed, even. Will's eyes widened as he shifted on the squeaking mattress and felt his ears glow with rising heat. “I'm fine,” he mumbled, pressing a thumb between his lips and biting down on whatever was left of the tortured nail.

Will could feel hot breath against his cheek when his Alpha leaned closer, but didn't turn his head to meet him. “It hurts you,” Hannibal growled hot against his ear and Will inhaled sharp and deep with his eyes closed tight, and his trembling fingers digging into the knees of his jeans. Fuck, he was weak. He was completely defenseless, wanting nothing more than to bury himself against Hannibal without a single layer between them, and simply forget the rest of the world even existed. “It hurts,” he admitted as curls fell before his eyes and his shoulders hunched forward. 

“Does this help?”, Hannibal asked him, and let one hand run over Will's hot forehead with a most gentle, patient pressure. Fingers stroked where skin met hair as one arm curled back around Will's fragile frame. “This helps,” Will sighed, before allowing himself to lean into his Alpha's neck, helpless against the purest need that clawed its way up inside him faster and louder than ever before. Safe. Warm. Protected. He inhaled the darkness of their scents, entangled and dancing around them, and lost all power to stop himself from wanting and having this. “Don't let go,” he whispered into the deep musk of his Alpha's neck and felt his breath hitch against the skin as Hannibal brought up a hand and wrapped his fingers against the Omega's bare throat. It was a protective, primal touch, Will understood, to shield his weak vitals from the world.

“No,” Hannibal agreed softly between them and rubbed the tips of his fingers along the underside of Will's sharp jawline. If he had possessed any less pride, the Omega certainly would have purred into the touch. They sat in silence, breathing and touching slowly as Will closed his eyes and felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness again. It wasn't before long however, that he heard Hannibal inhale sharply into his ear, and felt an intrigued nose poking against the side of his head. “Don't,” he moaned and pulled back from the embrace with a miserable grimace on his face. “I stink.” He just realized that days upon days without a shower and layers upon layers of old sweat must have been torturing Hannibal's delicate senses from the moment Will had stepped into the cell. His cheeks flushed at the thought, with tight, sour embarrassment. 

Hannibal looked at him as a smile pulled along his lips, and he rose steady eyebrows at his mate while long fingers raked through Will's greasy, curly hair. “The only stench I smell on you belongs to Jack Crawford,” he said with admirable confidence, and Will forced himself not to throw his head back into the massaging fingertips on his skull. Instead, he rose his own eyebrows at the Alpha, pursing his lips. “Well spotted,” he said, with what he hoped was a small, unimpressed nod. One hand was still resting on Hannibal's waist, and he couldn't allow himself to move away further.

Hannibal's hands came to rest alongside his temples as he tried to burn that golden stare deep into Will. “Is he what's troubling you?”, he asked, a small twitch to his upper lip, and Will suddenly had a strong vision of Hannibal cutting Jack Crawford's throat in the broad daylight of the park. Fingers stroked lightly over his ears and Will sighed with a sour smile around his parted lips. “There is an abundance of things troubling me,” he said, as he flashed his eyes to the red dot in the corner. That fucking camera. 

Hannibal dropped his hands down to collect Will's fingers between his own. “Yes,” he said. “Some things do not change.” Will was reminded of how they had touched just like this, only yesterday, and remembered how the scent had lingered in the deep groves of his skin. He looked back into Hannibal's eyes and wished he could kiss him again. Instead, he groaned his frustration out loud and dropped his head in his neck. “Someone broke into my motel room yesterday,” he heard himself confessing and almost rolled his eyes at the shameless need to share his worries with the Alpha. He should have kept him at arms-length instead of reeling him in closer, closer than anyone else. Molly didn't know, he realized. He never told her. “Nothing's missing,” he continued miserably. Hannibal didn't respond immediately, but Will felt his muscles tense and his fingers tighten on his hand. “That is most interesting,” the Alpha said when he finally did speak and Will sighed hot against his mate's skin.

Will closed his eyes and sagged further into the inviting warmth of his mate. Hannibal's fingers jerked once, but there was nothing but silence as they sat together, healing, surviving. “Theories?”, Will finally asked, before he could fall back into his previous slumber. Hannibal rubbed his thumbs into Will's palms and grazed the length of his Omega's upper legs with his nails. “Of course,” he said against Will's cheek and brushed his lips gently to the bone underneath. “But?”, Will asked bluntly as he met Hannibal's soft stare. Fingers curled around his jaw and Will allowed the weight of his head to rest against the supporting touch.

Hannibal smiled softly. “Nothing that requires immediate action or attention,” he answered, and stroked a hand through Will's hair when it threatened to fall back before his eyes. Will frowned at the words but before he could protest, fingers smoothened over the worry that showed on his forehead. “What you need is sleep,” the Alpha lectured. “Proper food.” Will thought about his pepperoni pizza. “And this.” Hannibal's arm slid tighter around him, bringing Will close to his chest as he pushed his nose into the Omega's hair. “Nothing else should concern you.”

Will heard his Alpha's steady heartbeat against his ear and sighed pitifully. “Not everyone agrees with you,” he said, trying to ignore the red dot in the corner of his eye. He tried not to think about the image they created on that screen. He tried to push away that haunting voice that reminded him just what he was doing, and undoing, by allowing this to happen. By making it happen. “Jack Crawford came to see you,” Hannibal said in answer to his words and Will sat up again to reach into the pocket of his coat. “He was trying to recruit me for a case,” he said, fishing the envelope with crime scene photos from his inner pocket and frisbee-ing them the short distance to Hannibal.

The Alpha let his eyes run over the colorful pictures in his hands, watching the dead faces, the bloodied walls, the pink, ripped nightshirt around the woman's shoulder. “He's been pushing these on me,” Will said with distaste, as he watched his mate flip through the stack with careful fingers. The empty sockets, the bloody shards of mirror, the bite marks on pale flesh. “There have been numerous families murdered just like this.” Hannibal arranged the pictures in a neat pile before he pushed them back into the open envelope. “Is this why you came to Baltimore?”, he asked, a tilt of his head. “To profile Jack's killer?” Will pursed his lips at the raging memory of needing to go, go, go to the Baltimore hospital and see the Alpha for which his Omega had thrashed manically inside him. He didn't answer, but rose both eyebrows at once as he saw the twitch at Hannibal's lips. Jack Crawford had been the perfect excuse, but Hannibal had been the only reason.

“Jack wants you,” Will said as he tore his eyes away from the growing heat in the Alpha's glowing eyes. “I'm just the best he can get.” He grabbed the envelope that now lay abandoned on the mattress and pulled it towards him as Hannibal pushed his fingers together against his lips. “I disagree,” he said. “You would already have a very clear vision of this killer, if you hadn't been otherwise engaged.” Will released the envelope and realized their hands were no longer touching. It instantly felt like something was missing, a wanting flame in his belly, but to reach out now would feel vulnerable, a naked display of desire. “Otherwise engaged,” he mumbled under his breath, eyeing his mate as his cheeks tinged pink. He hid the smile that threatened to pull at his lips and looked up from beneath his wild hair.

Again, the fire in Hannibal's eyes burned hot and high and Will quickly bit down on the inside of his cheek before the luring need for closeness would overtake him. He cleared his throat and scratched absently at the corner of the envelope with his fingernail. “They call this guy the Tooth Fairy,” he said, worrying his bottom lip. “Because of the odd bite marks.” His breath hitched when a hand slid up his calf and came to rest above his knee, as he rose his eyes up to see where warm fingers massaged circles into his jeans, and the weak flesh underneath.

“He dislikes that title,” Hannibal said, as his free hand ran up Will's upper arm and slid to the beginning of his long, bared neck. The skin there was sensitive, and Will remembered soft lips instead of fingers on the pale flesh. “I imagine he...” Will started, fingering the sheets on the mattress, right before he considered Hannibal's words. Around the haze of touch and want that swam behind his vision, and the Omega that rubbed his back contently against the wooden floor with all his paws into the air, the meaning sank in. “You know him?”

He looked back at Hannibal with sharpening eyes and felt fingers tightening on his thigh as a playful spark danced across his Alpha's features. A joke Will wasn't in on, and therefore one he didn't like. “He has contacted me,” Hannibal said honestly, but his voice took a dip for the sake of the microphones. Instead, he leaned closer to Will's ear and spoke deeply into the Omega's skin. “He is a great admirer of my work.” Will shivered into the rumbling words against the shell of his ear and ground his teeth inside his mouth when slick started to leak inside his boxers. “For God's sake,” he hissed against Hannibal's cheek, silently inhaling against his mate's skin as his hands twitched not to reach out.

It hurt to pull back, but pain was something he had grown accustomed to. It was unfortunate, however, that pain, when removed, hurt twice as much when it came creeping back inside the blissful bones. “So, what does he want from you?”, he asked the Alpha with a sharp edge of irritation. They didn't have time for this. This shouldn't be important. Hannibal covered the distance between them, rubbing a hand over the back of Will's neck as he moved his hips closer underneath Will's legs. More slick, more heat, more musk filled the air around them, but Will tried not to show how it hit home inside his head. He was not, after all, in a state of excusable heat. 

“He's looking for a partnership, a means for his transformation,” Hannibal spoke like silk as he pulled his fingers tighter around the nap of Will's neck. “Or perhaps the appropriate term would be, leadership.” A touch rose higher up Will's thigh as the words were spoken so near his face he could taste the warmth of Hannibal's skin on his tongue. “Leadership?”, he repeated, blinking at his mate with squinted eyes that tried to resist responding to the kneading touch on his leg, or the playing fingers along the soft, weak spot on the back of his skull. Hannibal inhaled sharply and Will allowed his fingers to slide back to the front of the Alpha's jumpsuit to fist into the material, like a subconscious gesture they both knew it was not. “He is a wandering lamb,” Hannibal practically purred against Will's cheek as he leaned forward into his mate's touch. “Longing to be herded.” The nose of his Alpha slid along his, and Will quickly pulled back at the threat of a kiss. He wanted that touch. He wanted that closeness so deep, there would be nothing left of him by the end of it, devoured in completion... “By the big, bad wolf?”, he asked, bitterness on his tongue as his hand squeezed into the strong bone of Hannibal's hip. Hannibal smiled at that, showing his fangs, sharp and bare. “Exactly that.”

It was an impulse, unexplainable to him in hindsight, but Will leaned forward to mush their lips together in a kiss that stole away that grin and replaced it with a slack mouth that belonged to him, and him alone. Because there was something there, in that wicked smile, that Will didn't understand. And in that moment, nothing inside Hannibal that wasn't in tune with the Omega, was allowed to exist. The moment was hard but brief, and Will pulled away as quick as he had started. His eyes opened a second too late to be convincingly unaffected. “That doesn't explain these,” he said, rather breathlessly, as he gestured shakily to the pictures in the envelope.

Hannibal's lips were pink and parted and so inviting, as he leaned his head against the back wall and ran greedy eyes over Will, felt by the Omega to the depth of his wobbling core. “He is a shy boy,” Hannibal smiled fondly, and Will felt his stomach tightening at the sight. “But he knew just what would attract my attention.” Will hissed when the fingers on his neck and thigh tightened, and felt a sack of ice rip inside his belly. “This is all for you?”, he asked, his throat choking out the words as he swallowed against the rising chaos that started to stir within. Inside the attic, his Omega poked up his ears and growled, showing bloody, pink gums around glistening fangs.

Hannibal did not nod, cocked his head to the side. “This,” he said, gesturing offhandedly towards the dozen photographs of cruel, cold, family murder, “- is the ritual that feeds the process of his becoming.” Will's jaw tightened visibly at the words. His becoming. It had been Will once, who was to become. He hadn't allowed himself to get where Hannibal had desired him to be, and now, here was he. The Tooth Fairy. Hannibal didn't smile, or sigh or shrug. He only stared at Will and rubbed his touch into his flesh as he said: “He is to become the Great Red Dragon.”

Fuck. And there it was. The Great, Red, Dragon. His twitchy, pale stalker from the park. Will closed his eyes briefly and swallowed again as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down against the inside of his skin. He watched his arms and saw the goosebumps on his flesh. “And the Dragon needs something more to complete his transformation,” he said, rising his eyes to meet Hannibal in a straight stare that bore deep into the gold that shone challengingly back at him. 

Will tried not to betray the havoc that was whirling inside as his Omega started to pace back and forth with a predatory growl and his insides soaked in shark infested ice water. “Something you can give him,” he said and watched Hannibal's lips twitching in response. The stroking fingers only rubbed deeper against his skin and Will heard a low groan rise from his throat. Hannibal tilted his chin before he answered. “He needs to bond with a strong Alpha.”

He remembered the man from the park well. How strange yet familiar his presence had been. “He's an Omega,” he realized. “He's a male Omega.” Hannibal watched him for a quiet moment as he brought a hand back to Will's knee. “Yes,” The Alpha said. Will wetted his dry lips with his tongue. “And he needs to bond with you,” he said, hearing his own words echoing back from the sudden hollowness inside him. 

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! (Gals! ;-)) I really wanted to just say to you how blown away I was this week by the crazy support and love I got after posting my last chapter with the note about me getting some negative messages! It is mindblowing how sweet this fandom truely is! I really felt like you guys have my back and I was twice as excited to get on with my chapters! I also felt like I have gotten to know some of you a bit better and that is something I cherish soooo fucking much, you have no idea!  
> Oh yeah, Hannibal and Will made out like puppies licking at eachothers face, and now there is some Red Dragon trouble! ;-) I hope you guys are still with me ^.^, and that you enjoyed it despite all the poor Will suffering! I do have a very busy week (My girl is turning 3 tomorrow and I've been running around doing crazy pink frosting things, all of which are very unHannibaly! ) so I will try very very hard to update on the next Thursday, but if I fail to make it, it will be sooooooon after that!! And I do promise you some serious Hannigram stuff ;-) All my love! You guys are amazing!


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” Will said, gathering himself back on his bones as Hannibal kneaded both his fingers over his bared skin. “This is for you.” He nodded his head back to the envelope on the mattress filled with the families, the heaps of mutilated corpses. He then tried to purse his lips in a display of his distaste, but failed miserably when his mouth went slack as Hannibal found that weak spot between the band of tissue on the cushy part below the joints. Will chuckled openly at his own defeat when Hannibal didn't speak, but circled his fingers below his toes with a touch that sung worship Will could feel hot in his groin. His lips curled around his teeth, hiding a deep grunt that roared in his belly as he lifted his head back up to look at his mate. He was watching him, eyes shimmering in the light and even a spot of color on his pale cheeks as he stared at his Omega in a challenging silence, honoring him with his touch. Will pressed his lips together when a flash of emotion, colored a nasty, toxic green, stirred inside his mind. “His becoming, his ritual murders, it's a courtship.”

Will tensed his leg beneath Hannibal's touch, but couldn't bring himself to move away from the warm, lingering fingers on his skin. Instead, he placed his own hands behind him on the mattress and leaned his body back to give Hannibal a long, seizing stare. “Are you enjoying this?”, he asked, hoping to sound void of emotions as he referred to Hannibal's previous answer. Two male Omega's, an exceptional occurrence, both within the metaphorical grasp of a notoriously powerful, unbonded Alpha. One of them unwilling to bond, but a true Per mutua nexis match. The other very willing indeed, and as Will understood it, with very similar ideas of what was enjoyable recreation. Hannibal's senses as well as his well-groomed ego surely had been in overdrive since the moment he had received that phone call.

“I enjoy witnessing the process of his becoming,” Hannibal answered pleasantly as he squinted his eyes like a lion stretched out in the African sun, and he pushed one leg of Will's jeans up to his knee to stroke along the pale calf that appeared from underneath. Will shivered visibly, and knew Hannibal would undoubtedly feel the tremor beneath his skin. It took a deep breath for the Omega to find his voice again as he leaned back heavier on his supporting arms, tilting up his chin. “Of course,” he said, more unsteady than he had hoped as a whole hand stroked from his ankle to the inside of his knee. His legs would be buckling in no time if those fingers kept brushing against the sensitive skin right on the inside of his tendon.

“I've met him,” he quickly confessed when his knee betrayed him with a desperate twitch into the Alpha's touch, and he spread his fingers on the mattress to create a steadier grip. Hannibal's hand traveled down to where the elastic of Will's sock pushed snugly into his skin and allowed his fingers to slip beneath the stretching band. Will inhaled sharply when two fingers brushed against the inside of his bare ankle. “He came to me in the park,” he added breathily, and Hannibal's eyes met him, brief but hard, as nails scraped over the heel of Will's twitching foot. A crack in the veil. His Alpha was surprised. 

“Well...”, Hannibal spoke evenly as fingertips soothed the traces of his nails. “I must admit, I never had the pleasure of meeting him face to face.” Gold eyes danced with ocean blue, curiously poking and provoking his Omega as his lips twitched around the corners. Fingers pulled at Will's sock to work it off his foot, and the Omega felt the true spark of arousal deep within his belly as he squirmed down against the mattress. Hannibal could smell the rising scent of slick that was forming on the rim of his entrance, Will was certain, but the Alpha only moved his hands to the other socked foot, and gave it the same, attentive treatment. “There is no pleasure to be had, there,” Will fired sharply from between clenched teeth, knowing how much of himself he was baring with those words, his scent, the tension visible in his posture, but he only rolled his head back at the punishing squeeze in his Achilles heel.

“He wanted me to know him,” Will said, with both his feet now bare in Hannibal's lap. “For me to know he is there.” And Hannibal hummed, caught his eye in silent agreement, and brought his attention back to Will's wriggling toes in his hands. The Omega braced himself for some unbearably oversensitive squirming from the sensations of soft fingertips against his extremely responsive flesh. He never had liked having his feet touched, as the skin of his sole was ticklish to the point of painful. But now, as those fingers started a deep, circling, massage against the tissue of his heel, he could only try to bite back a moan of surprising pleasure that rose high enough to feel it in the root of his teeth. What else could he have expected other than that Hannibal could touch him wherever, in a way that weakened him from toe to core, to the tip of his warm, glowing ears?

“So,” Will said, gathering himself back on his bones as Hannibal kneaded both his fingers over his bared skin. “This is for you.” He nodded his head back to the envelope on the mattress filled with the families, the heaps of mutilated corpses. He then tried to purse his lips in a display of his distaste, but failed miserably when his mouth went slack as Hannibal found that weak spot between the band of tissue on the cushy part below the joints. Will chuckled openly at his own defeat when Hannibal didn't speak, but circled his fingers below his toes with a touch that sung worship Will could feel hot in his groin. His lips curled around his teeth, hiding a deep grunt that roared in his belly as he lifted his head back up to look at his mate. He was watching him, eyes shimmering in the light and even a spot of color on his pale cheeks as he stared at his Omega in a challenging silence, honoring him with his touch. Will pressed his lips together when a flash of emotion, colored a nasty, toxic green, stirred inside his mind. “His becoming, his ritual murders, it's a courtship.”

Hannibal's lips stretched as he rolled the palm of his hands against the balls of Will's feet. “In a way,” he said patiently as his eyes shone bright behind the narrowed lids, watching his own fingers cup the back of the Omega's heels. “It's an offering,” he then continued. “To both the Dragon and myself.” Will struggled with his breathing when those hands grabbed hold of the underside of his heel, before they traveled back up to his calves. “Corpses instead of flowers,” he said, squeezing his eyes as he watched his mate flash a fang bare behind his neutral exterior. There was mirth behind the careful gold. “He certainly seems to comprehend my interests,” Hannibal spoke, attentive to his words. His fingers, however, slid back to the inside of Will's knees, just beneath the fabric of his jeans and Will's groin stirred as a flush spread from his chest to his hair. “Yes,” he breathed. “Because they are his interests.” He was flustered but direct, and Hannibal challenged him with a small smile around pink lips. Will knew his own features distorted in both pleasure and discontent as he lost himself in half a grimace. “Quite a match.”

Hannibal slid his hands against the back of Will's upper legs where his jeans were still loose enough to give the Alpha's fingers room as he stared back at Will with an adoring acquisitiveness. There was a quickly growing fire that simmered inside the black of his widened pupil as fingers traveled to the back of the Omega's thighs, and Will inhaled sharply past his bared teeth. “You have a willing, like-minded Omega at your disposal,” he said, making a display of sounding conversational, amused, but he knew his eyes were like steel, both in color and hardness. Hannibal's eyes remained soft, liquid like honey, a soft purr still present inside his chest. “So it appears,” he spoke, sharper than his lazy appearance would have him look. It was a game.

“And now you're curious to see how this unfolds,” Will said with a sly smile, and wished dearly that he could feel the indifference he was poorly feigning. It would be so much easier if none of this mattered. That his decision to leave, made in spite of whatever would happen to Hannibal, whatever would happen to the other Omega, separate or together, moot. But he wasn't big enough a liar to make himself believe that. Not when every little inch of him spat fire at the thought, too strong to rationalize away, or stop, or fight. “Not at all,” Hannibal said matter-of-factly. “I am simply curious to see how this will end for him.” Fingers brushed the back of Will's upper thighs and more slick slid from his insides to wet the outer rim of his hole. He was already so sensitive, with nothing but fingertips against his legs, and it was outrageously maddening. “Or me,” Will countered, squinting darkened eyes down his nose at the Alpha, while simultaneously growing hard inside his underwear. Fuck. 

He knew the cold stare he was trying to exhude was ruined by the smell of arousal and the pink flush on his cheekbones, but Hannibal was careful not to show if any of this distracted him from the conversation at hand, as he blinked steadily at the accusation. “Not at all,” he said, nails tracing against the inside of an upper leg, and Will's nose twitched as he bent his knee upwards and limiting the room Hannibal's fingers had inside his jeans. “He knows about us,” the Omega bit. “If he wants you as his mate, he will come after me.” He was quickly distracted when Hannibal tried to reach his thighs with light, circling strokes and his insides clenched needily around the steady drip of slick.

“There is no honor or victory gained from slaughtering another Omega,” Hannibal spoke quickly as Will watched his nostrils flare, while a new darkness opened up within the fire of his unbreakable gaze. And Will looked back, knowing how his own eyes were glazed over, showing both desire and desperation, and the deep, dark sense of disturbance. Hannibal's pupils widened with the mingling scents of their arousal, but his touch remained steady and strong on Will's warm skin. “The only real triumph is to win the Alpha's interest and affection, the consent to bond, over a higher matched Omega.”

Will huffed, pushing out his upper lip with his lower one. “With this?”, he asked, tilting his head back to the envelope, as Hannibal moved his hands back from knees to calves to ankles and up, with broad, warm strokes. “For instance,” he said, and the dark fire flared in gold with playful licks around the pupil. Will gave a short nod, lips between his teeth as he again leaned his weight back on his arms. “Is that a possibility?”, he inquired, with his eyes moving upwards to draw patterns on the ceiling as Hannibal's hands squeezed a little firmer around the muscles of his calves. “For an Omega to win over an unbonded Alpha with a higher matched mate?”, Hannibal repeated, and Will reluctantly lowered his gaze back to the dancing lights of shimmering gold eyes, as his own face grew stiff around his lips, his jaw clenched tight. 

Hannibal's eyebrows rose once, but purposefully. “It is a rare occurrence, but...”, he spoke thoughtfully and Will felt his lips curl up with a flare of feral agitation. “-But not impossible. Yeah, I get that a lot lately,” he sneered openly, before breathing deeply and lowering his head to look down his chest. God, what was he even doing? He had no right to have an opinion on the matter, if he himself chose to leave him behind. It meant nothing. But instead, the idea poked holes into him like a scolding hot sword that slashed into him left and right. Will closed his eyes and bit on the inside of his cheek. Hannibal wasn't his. He chose that. That didn't make it a good idea for the Alpha to team up with Mr. Another Serial Killer, but it also didn't give him the right to feel... to feel like someone was stealing his life. 

Hannibal looked at him, the amber growing soft like dough and reflective like bright sun rays on oil as his hands slid carefully off Will's legs, turning his body sideways. The Omega pulled his knees back to himself when his mate moved closer on the bed, until he came to sit directly beside him, eyes on eyes, sliding soft, cupping hands around Will's scruffy jaw as his lips curved into a barely-there, real hint of a smile. The contact was so close, so intense, so real in its emotion that Will felt his lips quiver and his belly burn before Hannibal even spoke.

“Will, I was created for you alone,” he said, the fire around his pupils so wild and warm Will closed his eyes at the weakness it woke within him. His forehead came to rest against Hannibal, as thumbs stroked over his cheeks. “Anyone else would be blasphemy.” Will smiled wide into the touch, fighting against the sudden tears that pressed from beneath his lids, and exhaled sharply between their noses. “You are blasphemy, in the flesh,” he sighed, pressed head to head as Hannibal stroked fingers down his jaw, his throat, and back behind his ears. He felt Hannibal smile wider as thumbs came under his eyes to gather the starts of moisture spilling on his cheeks.“Nothing has ever been this holy,” the Alpha whispered and Will swallowed against his dry throat before he slid their noses together until lips touched into a soft kiss that was only there for tasting, closeness, showing both his desires and regrets. 

They pulled back after nothing more than a press of mouths, and Will opened his eyes to look at his mate with a pain he knew screamed from all the lines of his face. “But, you know I can't just...”he struggled and something sharp sliced through the flames in Hannibal's eyes. Something of Will's pain lingered there, and stayed. “I either live with you, or die in solitude,” he heard the Alpha speak with nothing that gave doubt to the sincerity of his words, but Will choked a chuckle, and huffed out a breath. “Oh, those operatics,” he spoke, wiping one side of his hand over his cheeks as Hannibal's expression stayed unchanged, a gentle pool that hid dark, cold depths underneath. 

Will pulled back from the touch, collecting himself with a loud inhale as he leaned back, and placed his hands over his knees. “If that's true, then why encourage him?” he asked, voice fragile, but his eyes unwavering as he looked at his Alpha. Hannibal blinked once, his posture stoic as only he ever could. “I've done no such thing,” he said, countering, and Will rose his eyebrows. “You enjoy the attention,” he accused with a pointed stare and Hannibal nodded his head to the side. “Who would not?”, he spoke, rather airily before he narrowed his eyes in satisfaction. “I am simply intrigued by his colorful mind.” His eyebrows rose once as if to challenge Will, but subtle enough never to be able to be accused of such a thing. Will ran his tongue over the inside of his cheek as he sighed, feeling hot and cold swirl but not mingle inside his belly.

“Wasn't that the foundation of our friendship, once?”, he questioned his mate in a similar manner, trying to feign a mild disinterest. Hannibal's tongue wetted his own lips as he tilted his head back to look down his nose. “Merely a lick on the surface,” he said, mirth on his tongue and Will shook his head as he tried to hide the pull of a smile on his mouth. He crossed his ankles and brought his legs to his body as he bit down on his lips, and brushed a loose curl off his forehead. He was contentiously trying to close himself to more contact, even if all he wished to do was make Hannibal smile his teeth bare, kiss his lips open, slide his hands inside that jumpsuit. In this moment, he wanted nothing but to stay. Stay until whenever.

Instead, he pushed his nails into his knees and cleared his throat with a quiet scrape of muscles. “I'm not sure I believe that honor is high up on your new Omega's list,” he said, willing away the unhappy fluster on his cheeks that came with the unwanted, internal confessions. Hannibal's eyes darkened, his shoulders straightened, a flash of beast beneath the man. “It is on mine,” he said, a drop in his voice. “He is well aware.” But Will shook his head, a grimace on his face as he flashed sharp eyes to the Alpha. “I don't trust him to leave me out of this,” he tried to bite, but felt his shoulders sag when Hannibal curled his fingers on top of his against his knees. “You fear for your safety?”, the Alpha asked, soft but inescapably direct as he folded his hands around Will's and squeezed, whole and safe. Will wished he was stronger, but his neck already loosened and his head tilted back as he closed his eyes and shrugged.

“Someone should,” he mumbled, succeeding in sounding offhanded, but failing to avoid the golden eyes that captured him so dangerously complete. Hannibal must have seen the weakness caused by his own touch, but always looked beyond, deeper into his skin, his flesh, the depths of his eyes. Will knew he looked at his Omega and saw the high wall of stubborn, fiery strength that Will knew had always been there, both too strong and too weak to be allowed to break down. “So arrest him,” Hannibal said, testing him with those glittering eyes and the warm, powerful grip on Will's hands and knees. And God, Fuck, if there was anything he would want to do right now, Will would take those hands in his and squeeze them until he could feel bones crack under his grip, before he would open that jumpsuit until he could fuck himself right and deep on the Alpha's cock, already spreading its scent from behind the cotton prison. Will breathed deep, and lowered his eyes to his knees. It was a rather quick escalation of actions and thoughts, he realized, and the Omega blinked rapidly as he pushed his legs closer together.

“Is that what you want?”, he croaked, shaking his mind clear from loose, floating fantasies as he forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand. Hannibal's fang grazed the skin of his own lower lips as he lowered his eyes down the Omega's neck, his chest, in between those clenched knees, before he found his own reply. “I'm merely interested in what you want,” he spoke evenly and Will sucked the sultry air between them into his lungs as he turned his head to the side. “I'm not a policeman,” he spoke around tight lips. Hannibal's eyes traveled back up as his hands ran down to grip around his mate's ankles. The touch could have felt controlling. Instead, Will was silently begging for him not to let go, while simultaneously cursing himself for thinking it. “You have the means,” Hannibal countered, with only a small twitch of an eyebrow that shafted against Will's insides like sandpaper on wood.

He was trying to rub sticks and start a fire, and Will took that challenge with squinting eyes. “Do you have his name, his address?”, he asked, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head as he watched his Alpha tilt his chin, warming every inch of him with those golden, claiming eyes. “That sort of information would be dangerous to share over a prison phone, don't you agree?”, he asked almost pleasantly, and pressed those pink lips together into a distracting purse of moist skin. Will breathed deeply from the nose at the glint that danced hot in the oily, amber liquid, and quickly turned himself on the bed to lift himself from the mattress to his feet. He stepped away, two steps, before he stopped. Two was enough to prove he was capable. More would surely hurt.

“I want nothing to do with any of this,” he said heatedly, pushing his hands in the pockets of his jeans as Hannibal sat up and moved himself to the edge of the bed. And he meant it this time, all the way through. This police work, it was piling on him, like it always had, but he no longer had the strength, the mind or the conviction to bear it. It was behind him, far and for good. “Families are dying,” Hannibal spoke behind him and Will clenched his teeth, his hands, his bare toes on the floor. A poor imitation of Jack Crawford, he now was, as his long lost trigger words became part of Hannibal's game, just to see what they would do today. Oh yes. Those pictures in the envelope, those families, they had suffered and died, innocent and young. It was a horror and a loss. It was a true waste of life and a reason for grief. “Does that reach not as deep as it used to?”, Hannibal probed, knowingly, and triumphant, that indeed it did not.

Will let his chest expand with a deep breath that never reached his belly, but lingered no further than his ribs. It was true. This case, the pictures, the pain and blood and murder, they were not as painful or as close as he remembered. They were not his anymore, taking over inside his body and mind as though they were those of relatives, friends, himself. They were strangers, far away, as the Omega in him kept whatever lingered outside his pack at bay. Not ours. Not our family. Will closed his eyes and smiled bitterly, feeling both the hurt and the relief at being freed from the intensity of his own, empathetic brain. “There is nothing left in me to give.”

Hannibal sat in silence, but Will felt him stare a hole in the back of his head as he slowly turned towards his Alpha. He was there on the bed, strong legs off the side, socked feet to the floor, watching him with a spark of life that made Will's insides dance, despite all else, in endless celebration, awakening pleasure, blooming hope, every time he looked at him. “I am not getting sucked back into that world,” Will said, swallowing his wavering determination. “Nor yours.” He shifted his eyes, first in unease, but was then quickly gripped by the way that gray jumpsuit clung to Hannibal's hips, thighs, arms, that broad chest. “It's done.”

He was beautiful. A lion. A godlike, demonic creature that deserved nothing but worship, but settled instead for Will's crumbs with the purr of a spoiled kitten. The Omega turned back around when the need and the want and the flooding affection he always felt overtook everything else when he looked at the man that had murdered him, killed his daughter, slaughtered his friend, ruined his mind, betrayed his trust. He was everything, still, and he destroyed him so carefully that Will could easily end up a willing pile of ashes in the palm of Hannibal's hand, Blackbeard's bride, or even just as Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter's bonded mate. Will pressed his hands to his eyes and swallowed back any sound that pushed up in his throat. He couldn't willingly choose it anymore. That chance had come and gone, long before he had decided to join the world and play the game.

“I'm going home soon, anyway,” he said, choking on the words, but steadying his back as he stared at the blank wall ahead of him. The mattress creaked, weight was lifted, and hands came to rest upon his upper arms as a warm body moved in from behind. “Will,” lips whispered against the shell of his ear in a low, hot brush of air, and the Omega's head rolled back on the shoulder behind him, already so weak, eyes behind fluttering lids. “There are things you do not yet understand. But you will.” Soothing words flowed against him and Will wanted them to be true. He wished to say yes, but whimpered instead. “I can't stay here.”

Hannibal's arms came around his belly, but Will turned himself in the embrace, desperate eyes on his Alpha. “The longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave.” He buried his nose into the Alpha's neck and inhaled the calming, glorious scent he found against the skin, but Hannibal pulled back and pushed them nose to nose as he held his face in his broad hands. “Look at me,” he said, not a demand, but Will's eyes followed it as one as Hannibal held his eyes with a deep stare, thick and warm like syrup. His face was open, vulnerable, a snake pit without the veil, but with a warm, deep fire that was unmistakably love. “Do you not realize by now how hard it will be without each other near?”, he asked, rubbing a thumb over Will's lower lip as he openly showed his own pain on the sharp, delicate features. 

Fingers brushed his eyelids, his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose and the line of his hair. “We have both suffered enough, don't you agree?”, Hannibal whispered, before he leaned closer to place one, soft kiss to Will's open lips, an offering of peace amidst the war inside of Will. “Let us have what we deserve,” the Alpha said, his voice a haven in the darkness of the ocean. “It is why we were created.” Another kiss pulled at Will's lips, soft, lingering, a taste of calm and quiet, yet mindless desire he could only follow after when the moist mouth tried to pull back. Will's tongue licked along the seam in a desperate attempt for closeness, a connection that would take away the world, along with his own mind. 

“I'm not blind to it,” Will spoke in a whisper, his own confession bringing pain like that of broken ribs. “I feel how well we fit,” he stared into those liquid eyes and hated his own words, meaning every single one, knowing what it could not be. “But I know something else too.” The Omega's hands reached around Hannibal's neck as he spoke with weakened lips. “and that is that together, we will not do the world any favors.” Will closed his eyes as his voice cracked, and leaned heavy into the hands that came to cup his jaw. They stood there, breathing heavily, close and warm, and in the flash of a second, Will envisioned them dripping around each other's feet like liquid, pooling on the floor until they were dissolved, mingled, as one. 

There was a silence where Hannibal pressed their temples together and held him, breathed him, fed his strength with his own as he pressed his lips against his mate's earlobe. “Has the world done you any favors, Will?”, the Alpha asked him, before he pulled back, his face turned grim, and gray, and still. “Our separation could kill you,” he said, looking at his mate with a fierce agony, and Will's tired eyes had a sudden vision of thin, forked veins, black as ink, growing and cracking and expanding over the skin of his mate's neck, up his cheeks, and painting his lips a deep shade of gray. He blinked, and watched the face turn back to white, and pink, red and blue and purple gray, as his hand gripped around Hannibal's neck. “If I succumb to it, you can always take the other mate,” he spoke softly, the sharpness and venom hidden one layer behind the twitching of his lips as he watched Hannibal's eyes spit the deepest fires of hell at the blink of his eyes. Then came the pool of dark ash, where the Alpha closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“I had envisioned your jealousy to be somehow satisfying,” he confessed with a small but bitter smile that Will longed to taste, and he wound fingers into Hannibal's hair in a desperate attempt to hold him, keep him. “I don't like it,” he confessed with a careful nod. “In fact, I can safely say there is nothing about this situation or this guy that sits well with me.” Hannibal laced fingers in Will's curls and smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Will mirrored the expression. “Did you expect it to change anything?”, he asked, running his nose rather shamefully along his Alpha's before he pushed himself back against the hollow of his mate's collarbone. He had all this pride, all this mind and brain and thoughts and heaps and heaps of memories. But it didn't matter. With a deep pain that boiled in a small kettle inside his core, he just let himself have that.

“No, Will. I hadn't even dared to hope,” Hannibal smiled against his hair, inhaling his scent as Will nuzzled closely into him and felt strong, safe arms wrapping around him. A warm breath brushed his skin and Will pushed himself fully into Hannibal's warmth. Love and bliss and happily ever after, it wasn't for him. Will had accepted it long, long ago. Somehow, the prospect of it, truthful or not, and having to let it go, was so much crueler. “I don't want you to hurt because of me,” he heard himself breaking against Hannibal's shoulder, who clung to him tighter, harder, warmer. “I can bear any pain,” the Alpha hushed, his voice layered down to an unreachable depth. “I can bear it until death.” Will's head fell back against fingertips that spread wide and firm against his skull. He watched his mate through hooded eyes, and saw the acid swirl of dissolving pain eat at the spark of gold inside as Hannibal spoke; “but I cannot bear your suffering.”

Will closed his eyes and surrendered into the cradling hands as he parted his lips and breathed in deep. “I can't bear it, Will,” Hannibal spoke, the pleading tone hidden around the growl that rolled from his throat. Will moaned when he felt soft lips pressing wholly against the skin beneath his jawline and heard the sharp intake of breath through Hannibal's nose as he scented him, tasted him, tightened his arms around him like he was trying to blend all the lines that existed between them. And Will let it happen, because it was the orb of air and fire and a blanketing sense of belonging in a world filled with blue, florescent light, fumes and metallic noise. “I'm sorry, Hannibal,” he said, his voice fragile, unsteady, and Will knew Hannibal could hear the speech did not have the sentiment, fire or determination behind it. Not anymore. “I can't abandon what I chose for myself years ago, simply because it doesn't suit me anymore,” he spoke so bravely, as he felt Hannibal's hands run down his arms within the silence. His lips twitched in uncertainty. “I have responsibilities.” Their eyes met again, sharper this time. “I have a wife and a boy that calls me Dad.”

And a piece of his heart broke away when he said it. Wally called him Dad. He had, ever since the wedding. He remembered Molly had sat him down and told him that Will was the closest thing to a father he would have now, and that had made it so. They'd both never gotten used to that title for him, Will knew. Not yet. Hannibal watched the miserable pull around his lips and cupped Will's chin to meet him. “A boy who calls you Dad,” he repeated, almost friendly, patient, bringing the words back to his mate without a single infliction in his tone to color them something else. And even now, Will heard the distance. “Don't do that,” he bit his teeth down and jerked his head from the fingers, but without as much venom as he had intended. “Do you love him, like a son?”, Hannibal spoke softly near his ear, with such a gentle innocence. “Does he depend on you, like he did his father?” And Will was reminded of the old days, where every sweet stroke of kindness was laced with manipulation.

“Don't do that,” he spoke again, this time hissing it between his teeth as he stepped back from the near-embrace they kept dancing in. But his step back was followed by a step forwards from the Alpha, stalking him, ever so gentle. “And your wife,” he spoke, as Will watched him move back in. “Do you think she can ease your pain?” A hand cupped around Will's jaw as they watched each other, eyes soft yet sharp, pooling and flooded with warmth and pain alike as a powerless love intertwined with hateful weakness. “I hope to ease hers,” Will said, defeated into the warm hand that held him like a baby bird. Hannibal smiled. Those pink lips that stretched wide and full showing the sharp glistening of his fangs. Will remembered the sting of them, the sharp points that pierced his flesh without a bitter pain, but a freeing one.

“And who takes care of Will Graham?”, Hannibal asked him, his voice direct and void of any leering or seduction as he watched him and held his chin with strong, steady fingers. “And why doesn't he deserve to be cared for?” Will shivered, pushing away tears as he tried not to feel the words Hannibal uttered so lovingly against him, but the touch so warm and gentle on his face made him feel weak and desired all at once. He was led back into a deep, warm embrace that pressed the lengths of their bodies close enough to bring back the still shimmering spark of arousal in his belly as hands spread over his back and ran down to the curve of his ass over the fabric of his jeans. “Hannibal,” Will sighed in response to the words as well as the touch as he gripped the Alpha's jumpsuit tighter between his fingers. 

“Let me make love to you,” Hannibal spoke into his ear with the purr of that sunbathing lion. God. Will tensed in the arms, pulling back his head with widened eyes as he shivered around the words that fell from his mate's lips. “Hannibal,” he said, warningly this time as his eyes met the wide-blown pupils of the Alpha, knowing his own eyes could not be showing more than blazing black. Hannibal licked his lips and followed the curve of Will's hips with his hands. “It will help us both. For a little while,” he said pointedly around the heat that already glowed like orange specks on black coal.

Will breathed hard into the touch that made his insides clench around nothing but newly forming slick as it leaked into his boxers. Fingers traced over the back pockets and Will pushed back, never admitting out loud or to himself that he wished very hard for those fingers to slip under his waistband, and trace the same patterns on his bare skin. “I can't,” he moaned, pathetically weak and whiny as he slumped against Hannibal's shoulder. The Alpha traced his fingers lower, nearing the crotch of the fabric. “Because there is no excuse for it to happen anymore,” he said, well-knowing, as he kneaded Will's flesh and made his mate's knees buckle. The Omega growled in Hannibal's ear, but met his eyes at his patronizing tone. 

“Yes, excuse me for not wanting to have sex with you while the world watches,” he sneered as his eyes shot towards that red dot on the ceiling. That fucking red dot. “Of course,” Hannibal said, bringing his hands up to the small of Will's back to dip beneath his shirt and stroke over soft skin. “How would you explain that to your wife?”, he stroked his words against his mate's neck, who stiffened against him and ground his teeth. Gold eyes burned hot in envious fury and black desire and Will suddenly wished he could scream out from the devastating war that raged within. Instead, he gripped Hannibal only tighter. “You cannot stand to see me suffer, and yet...”, he growled against the Alpha, who returned the feral noise, and nipped sharply at the skin of Will's neck.

“You don't know what makes you suffer,” he said, as he reached one hand between them, and curled it around Will's. “You don't know what makes you suffer, Will.” Stronger this time, pressing his cheek to Will as he pulled them together. “You don't know how much I long for you.” Will gasped, unable to breathe when the words hit him, and his free hand wrapped around Hannibal's arm, hooking nails tightly in his shoulder. “I do,” he confessed, with all his air and all his heart, wanting nothing more than to want this, with all that he was, and forget whatever was left behind. Lips found his neck, and Will whimpered.

“There is no camera in the bathroom,” Hannibal groaned against his ear, and a steady drip of slick released against Will's insides. “There is a microphone,” he bit back, breathing hard into his Alpha's ear as he felt a shudder run along his mate's spine. “Then be quiet,” Hannibal challenged him, mischief hidden in the heat of his voice, and Will felt an unstoppable smile pull up around his cheeks. Hannibal squeezed Will's hand inside his own in an unspoken question, and there was no need to reflect on an answer, or pretend that there was. There was no need to pretend there was any strength left inside him to fight it. He nodded against Hannibal neck, hiding his flushed face showing both his desire and relief, and felt the Alpha's shoulders fall loose from a tight grip of tension. Before he could take another breath, a warm hand pulled on his, and led him to the closed door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, don't hate me, please! I promised you guys some serious Hannigram last time, and I didn't deliver! I should have know, because this story was suppose to be 10/15 chapters tops and look at where we are XD...I got carried away (like always) and wrote all this dialogue and I couldn't stop and then there was no time to write smut! Please forgive me, I worked like a true manic to get this chapter up in time! So I know, this chapter was one big ball of pouty faces and kisses, pinching, hair pulling and more kisses :-P Not very Christmassy, but there was a foot rub, so that was a little bit peaceful! Anyways, forgive me, I love you guys and of course I wish you all super happy, Hannibal-ish (the food is people!) holidays!! I am extremely grateful for this year where I became a Fannibal and met the best people in the world! All my love!


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nails scratched against his glands beneath the skin of his throat, and teeth nipped almost painfully beneath his jaw as they rocked together, shaking and panting and quivering in a pool of melting lust and desperation. The storm that rose inside Will twirled dangerously around his head, breaking or polishing the different thoughts, the ideas, the untruths, until one thing remained upright and was repeated so permanently it felt tattooed in his brain, his skin, his tongue. I need you. I need you. I fucking need you. “Bite me,” he heard himself breathing hard as he stretched himself fully back, and pushed his head on Hannibal's supporting shoulder. “Bite me.”

Will staggered into the bathroom as Hannibal closed the door behind them with a loud, determined clunk of metal. Inside it was dark, until the flick of a switch buzzed the overhanging light to life. The room was small, light in stone and glass, artificially warm and lit. A bunker in war, a womb for the defenseless. Will felt the previous tendrils of grief and anger, doubt and spite, melt away from his limbs and his mind as the walls surrounded, sheltered and secluded them. They both turned to meet again and framed by cream colored tiles, Will watched Hannibal's profile sharp and stark against the light. There were memories here, inside hot water and steam – wet, bare skin and blinding pleasure that Will could recall very clearly inside the fog that filled his mind. And inside the intimate space, such necessary privacy, Will suddenly felt free enough to step forward, openly willing to wrap himself back around his Alpha and press their mouths together in a warm, wet kiss, of tender lips and tongues.

It was messy, open and needy like impatient new lovers as Will clung to his mate with painful determination and licked inside Hannibal's mouth like it held the breath he breathed. It was as instinctual as it had been during Will's heat, but now their fingers were soft and their lips asked with gentle nips rather than demanding bites. 

Goddamnit, Goddamnit, Will needed this. He wanted all of it. Everything. Their tongues met in an open search for closeness and taste and Will slumped inside the strong, steadying grip his mate had around his back. Surrendering and attacking all at once. Hannibal growled painful pleasure in his mouth and Will dug nails into his mate's neck in an attempt to bring him closer. It was fiercer, more passionate inside these walls, and hands pulled on hair as Hannibal started to back up his mate into the counter of the sink. 

“Up,” he growled into the Omega's mouth as he brought his hands to Will's hips to assist him onto the stone, cream colored counter. He easily slid on top of the smooth, cool surface as Hannibal stepped between his open legs that wrapped around the Alpha's hips like it was second nature. It was, of course. Maybe even first. The Alpha grunted against Will's ear when their hips slotted together and their groins met behind layers of cotton and jeans. Fingers worked fast on the buttons of Will's shirt, opening them from top to bottom as Hannibal revealed his Omega's bare skin to his own devouring eyes. The Alpha pressed them close with a dominant roll of his hips and Will threw back his head against the mirror behind him when he felt a spark of hot pleasure burning inside his jeans. “Fuck,” he groaned as a greedy mouth nipped on the sensitive skin of his neck, and laced his fingers through the soft, silver hair.

The shirt came off his shoulders, leaving his torso bare, and Hannibal left no time wasted to praise the newly revealed skin with roaming hands and searching lips. Will's fingers scratched helplessly against the clothed shoulders of his mate as Hannibal dipped his head to run a pointed fang over his Omega's peaking nipple, while stroking down Will's showing ribs with large, steady hands. Will leaned fully back against the mirror as hot hands, teeth, lips and tongue tasted him, felt him, touched him with open worship that made Will arch into his mate, as he bit softly on the skin above his navel. 

He was held up only by the supporting wall against his shoulders, close to horizontal, as his fingers fought and tugged with the gray fabric between them. “Off,” he said, pulling hard on Hannibal's jumpsuit and the Alpha groaned against his belly, running two hands up the thighs inside his jeans. Will's cock twitched at the nearing fingers, but he pushed against his mate with impatient hands, forcing Hannibal to raise his head and meet him. “Off,” he said again, demandingly gripping the front of Hannibal's clothes, with the frown of a spoiled child. Hannibal's eyes sparked bright at the clutching, searching fingers against his chest, before he grasped Will's hands in his own and brought them to his mouth, soothing frantic knuckles with light kisses. Will's belly quivered unsteadily, but a low whine tore from his throat as he wrestled against the grip.

“Take it off,” he growled with bared teeth, fighting himself up on the slippery stone with a fiery jerk as he reached almost violently for the buttons of his mate's suit. Hannibal smiled his teeth bare, stunned in the moment, but his eyes filled with hunger rather than amusement as he reached down to help Will's failing fingers on his clothes. The Omega pulled harshly at the material, almost ripping and breaking it as Hannibal's bare chest came into his view. The moment there was room to slide his hands inside the suit, he surrendered to the feral need to touch and feel his mate with a wild snarl as he curled his fingers into the soft skin of his Alpha's warm, strong back. Close. It wasn't gentle, but Hannibal quickly followed in his embrace as one hand worked down the rest of his buttons. Their bodies touched, chest to chest, and the soft slide of hair made Will's Omega purr in deep, primal satisfaction. 

Will buried his face against the naked hollow of his mate's throat as Hannibal shed the prison jumpsuit down his shoulders, off his hips, over his feet. Will started to press open mouth kisses against Hannibal's revealed skin, tasting him, wanting everything that was on offer as he brushed his nose against the coarse, gray hair and stroked around the hardened flesh of rose colored nipples. Hannibal's hands slid down his back, to the waistband of his jeans, and Will lifted his hips when the fabric was pushed down to his knees, followed by his boxers. Off his feet, down to the tiled floor.

They were both naked, both hard, flushed, aroused and in over their heads. So much need to finally get what they had craved all this time without each other. And Will knew it wasn't just that one side, of breeding and mating and rutting, when Hannibal wrapped his arms around Will's shoulders, stood between his mate's legs, and kissed him, held him, showered him with loving strokes of his hands and lips and nose and warmth without any camera making the Omega want to twist away, or feel exposed. In here, Will accepted it, he felt it, and understood it. In here, they could hold each other in absolute stillness, silence, and disappear beneath the waves together. So they stood there, lost to the world, but whole inside their own, and time ticked away without having any meaning. As if it never would, ever again.

But Will opened his eyes when Hannibal's lips brushed against his throat with such tenderness and adoration, he felt it burn all the way down to belly, right before he felt himself slipping forward on the stone seat. He snorted clumsily against Hannibal hair when he started to loose his grip. “If you keep doing that, I'm going to slide off the counter,” he confessed, his head feeling heavy with rushing blood as Hannibal pulled back with questioning eyes. Only when Will lowered himself to step back on the floor, did he see the trail of glistering slick that the Omega had leaked on the cream tiles, and his pupils blew wide enough to betray any color. Will let out a huff that was made of laughter and moans when Hannibal pressed them into a passionate kiss, hard and lost, and trailed his hands down Will's back to dip two fingers between the mounts of his ass, sliding them against the Omega's dripping opening. Hannibal groaned into his mouth at the feel of him, the sweet, heady scent that filled the air around them, and Will answered him with a high-pitched whine when those fingers circled firmly around the fluttering rim.

Will rose to his toes to give his mate a better angle, as he panted against the sharp fangs on his lips. Oh, how he had missed this. He had dreamed of this, every night, every time he'd closed his eyes. Hot lips rained nips and kisses over his skin as a long finger pressed against Will's hole and entered into the slick entrance of his body. “Hnn,” the Omega threw his head back in a newly found and long lost bliss as he scratched at Hannibal's back with a needy whimper and pushed back into the touch. He couldn't help rubbing his hard cock against his Alpha's lower belly, pressing closer in a blind need for more of him, everywhere. “Oh. Oh,” he panted, feeling Hannibal's answering erection big, hard and wet against his hip. Fuck yes, he had missed this. No hand, no fantasy, no one else made it like this. No one had ever done it right. 

A tongue traced the inside of his ear, as a wet, breathy growl made Will's skin tighten in hot and cold goosebumps while he sucked a deep bruise on his Alpha's jaw. The finger inside him pushed further in and was joined by another that started to stretch him wider. He was dripping wet, he knew, and Hannibal's touch entered him so smoothly it was almost sinful, shameful. The head of Hannibal's cock nudged beneath Will's belly button and he looked down to see them together, naked and hard, so wet and flushed and close. The sight made his insides buckle helplessly with desire. “Fuck,” a moan stroked along his throat when he watched them between their bodies, and he remembered the discs, the videos, as a brief flash of vision inside his mind. Hannibal was big and thick, uncut and glistering with his own arousal, and Will had seen it on that clip, where it had shown this cock entering him from that perfect, mesmerizing angle. Flushed dark pink and shining with Will's slick. He had wanted to taste him. He had wanted to sink to his knees and take him into his mouth.

Hannibal pushed the second finger to the first knuckle and Will almost went slack in his arms when a sharp, stinging pleasure burned and unleashed inside him like snowflakes in a blizzard. Fuck. And hidden inside these walls, inside the sheltering embrace, he felt brave enough to reach down and curl his careful fingers around his mate's swollen, heavy Alpha cock. Hannibal groaned low in his ear as Will folded a hand around his hard flesh and the Alpha's fingers pushed deeper and more dominant inside him. “Will,” the Alpha breathed, a plea hidden inside the name as Will pressed a hard kiss to his mate's shoulder and watched his own hand, small and pale around the large, blood-filled cock. He never had touched another man before. Not one. Not even Hannibal. Never had he dared, or allowed it. He tugged the foreskin back over the head to rub experimentally along the slit, and that was good, because Hannibal bit him softly on the neck, hissed, and used his free hand to grip at Will's naked back.

Hannibal was already dripping with his own arousal, and the slide of foreskin over hot, hard flesh was easy and smooth. Will closed his eyes when his mate moaned almost human-like against his temple and started to nip gratefully at his chin and jaw, as the Omega moved his hand around the wide length he was secretly already so familiar with. Slick poured down his own thighs now as Hannibal pumped his fingers in and out of Will's body, and the way his blunt nails grazed against his prostate with enough pressure to make him feel hot and tight, but never satisfied, was pure and agonizing poetry.

He let his hand speed up on Hannibal's throbbing, heavy shaft, never able to reach all of him at once as he shifted his fingers and rubbed moisture back into the slit. And this time, Hannibal was the one vocal about his pleasure. “Will,” he groaned again, his voice almost lost against his mate's skin, but the Omega heard his surprise at Will's sudden boldness. Never before had he given him pleasure, without simultaneously taking his own from the same source, and it felt intimate, a barrier crossed, a layer removed. In heat, Will remembered that all he had truly cared about was having Hannibal inside him, breeding him, filling him and knotting him until he body was full and warm and sated. Calm. But as time progressed, he had become curious about his mate's pleasure. The feel of him, the taste, the scent, the curve of his voice. 

Two fingertips pressed into his slick hole to tap his prostate more provokingly rather than teasing, and Will felt Hannibal's free hand catch the back of his head as he let it drop back at the insistent, rousing pleasure it pulled up inside him. Everything was so hot and slick and centered, and Will's hand ran boldly down his Alpha's length to cup and palm the skin of his balls. Heavy and soft, he let the inside of his hand curve around the sack as his fingers stroked against the darkened seam. Impatient, loving teeth nipped beneath Will's ear as Hannibal rumbled a loud purr against his skin, never stopping his own fingers from exploring the inside of his mate's tight body, and feeling encouraged, Will moved his own hand back up the Alpha's impressive length, stroking him with a tighter grip on the shaft, and steadier fingers against the swollen head.

A nasal grunt huffed against Will's skin as he pumped his Alpha's cock with quick, upward strokes that moved the foreskin up and down over the leaking head, as he arched his back into the intrusive touch between his ass cheeks, filling the space with the obscene sounds of hot, wanton groans and wet, pumping fingers in slick. “Oh fuck,” Will choked when a third finger pushed against his already stretched rim, and felt his own cock twitch at the full feeling of having his body adjusting wider around the curving digits inside. 

Hannibal hummed in response, allowing Will to run blunt fingernails along the length of his cock before he cupped his mate's hand with his own, and curled an arm around Will's narrow waist to twist him around, facing the counter. “Ugh,” Will grunted at the impact of his hips colliding briefly with the stone surface of the sink, and instantly bent forward to catch his weight on his elbows. Looking up through his curls, he came face to face with his own flushed cheeks, his blown, bloodshot eyes, the wet curls on his forehead. His neck was littered with red marks made with teeth and sucking lips, his mouth was red and bright from kissing and his bare skin was flushed a lively pink from the blood that pumped hard inside his veins. But the outside of the wide pupils, the enlarged depths of black, showed vibrant ocean greens and blues that seemed illuminated from the inside out. As bright and deep in color and light as Hannibal's golden tiger eyes. He watched the deep, feral glow of his Omega within him, stunned and enthralled by the vision, the tangible proof, and heard a grunt roll up from the back of his throat.

He hardly recognized himself as the man he had always seen in the mirror, but somehow, the sight that greeted him now was so much more familiar then anything he had ever seen staring back at him. Whenever he had brushed his teeth, or his hair, or buttoned up his shirt in the bathroom at home, he had always been looking through a film, a thick layer of something dull, thick, gray. Dust, that stuck to his skin, his hair, the dark rings around his eyes. Here and now, he was color, and light and very, very much alive. 

The sight of Hannibal, tall, strong, bare and equally radiant behind him almost seemed an hallucination, as a golden glow radiated off of him and clung to his silhouette like a lover, marking him nature's crowned predator. The sick discolorations, the cold and pain and sallow, hollow flesh, it was gone. Hannibal nuzzled into his neck, kissed the knots of his spine, and pushed all three fingers in deep as Will sagged forward on his arms and dropped his chin to his chest. “Hannibal,” he moaned at the new angle that provided so much more opportunity for pleasure, as Hannibal tapped his bent fingers maddeningly into the slick inside of his ass.

Hot, wet breath tickled his skin as his Alpha huffed against his back like a wild beast, and in the mirror Will could see the glint of true tiger eyes from between Hannibal's squinting eyelids. “Fuck,” he moaned as teeth grazed the skin of his neck with sharp points that left red scratches on the flesh, and hot, open lips breathed down his spine as a sharp tongue followed the curve of his bones. Will's cock was now trapped against the underside of the sink, as slick poured down to his knees and over his naked, trembling legs. His breath came out in heavy pants as Hannibal moved lower to mouth at the small of his back while twisting his fingers in and out of his mate's body in a torturous, slow but demanding pace. “Please,” Will heard himself moan, and he couldn't even feel shame for being so openly desperate for his Alpha. He was once again reduced to single words of praises, profanity or begging, but he was helpless to fight it, so he didn't even stop to try.

In the mirror, Will watched his own eyes flutter, his arms wobble, his curls shake and his hips curve back. He was nothing short of presenting himself to be mated, and the sight was truly, painfully arousing to watch. He was man mingled with beast, and he was Will Graham, more now than he ever had been, buttoning up those plaid shirts in front of the bathroom mirror. Behind him was Hannibal, taller, stronger, broader than he was. His hair was damp and pushed back, bringing forth the sharp curve of his cheekbones as his skin glowed a golden bronze. The hair that trailed over his body stood out like silver against gold, and the strong, softness of his posture screamed comfortable dominance, and power that made Will's insides spill more of that thick, glistening slick.

His mate was so big and ready between his strong thighs, and Will bit down on his lip at the memory of what it felt like to have all of that inside. But the sight was taken from him when Hannibal stepped closer, and pushed his cock right between the cleft of Will's ass. “Yes, yes.” Will's eyes turned black as their gaze locked in the mirror and Hannibal pressed his body against Will's, making the Omega feel the hairy chest against his bare back while watching his mate lean in to reach his ear. “Anything,” he heard him purring deeply into his skin, and felt his entire body wobble weakly on its joints as he watched his powerful mate with his glistening fangs and burning, consuming eyes. 

He whimpered like a pup, as his mind raced around the word. Anything. Anything he wanted. Hannibal would give him whatever, if he only asked. But there was only one thing to ask. Only one thing he wanted. “You. This,” he moaned against the lips that grazed his cheek, capturing his in a soft but hungry kiss before Hannibal pressed harder against him and ran his hands over the length of Will's back to the curve of his hips. He cupped them, tilted them backwards and squeezed one asscheek with his large hand to spread him wider.

“Like this?”, the Alpha asked with a tremble in his voice, watching Will in the mirror with a hungry stare, trying to show control, while Will could clearly see him barely hanging on. “Yeah,” he breathed into his own shoulder, never taking his eyes off Hannibal's face, his body, and the lost, wild pleasure in his tiger eyes. Hannibal never lost it. Hannibal was never out-strengthened by anything life had thrown at him. Hannibal always had all control. Until now. Until Will. The Omega watched his own fangs shining sharply in the bathroom light as he felt himself both warmed as well as heated by the thought and the knowledge of his own power over the Alpha. Hannibal pushed against him, the head of his cock leaving a wet trail on Will's cheek, before he folded himself closer around his mate, and wrapped his arms around his torso to hoist him back in his embrace. The large tip of Hannibal's erection now pushed impatiently against Will's drenched, stretched hole, and the Omega moaned in wild desperation at the nudge he felt there. Asking his permission. 

“Yeah, like this,” he repeated, his voice barely a whisper as he curved his back and pushed back against Hannibal. “Fuck me.” The low growl that rose from Hannibal made Will's own lungs tremble beneath his ribs as he felt the blunt tip of his mate's cock pushing past the rim of his hole. They had done this many times, and it had never been anything but intense, but this time, outside his heat, Will felt the stretch of his body, the slide of hard skin inside slick, tight heat, and the hands on his belly holding his steady, guiding him back, like he never had before. There was no haze around the heat, the pain, the pleasure. It was so much more, raw and breakable and overwhelming, in a way no outline was blurred and smoothed.

And he watched himself in the mirror as tears filled up his eyes to the brim and sweat glistened on his skin like fiery sparks. He felt the thick girth of his mate's cock slowly entering him, pressing inside in a careful slide of skin. Behind him, Hannibal had closed his eyes and buried his face against Will's spine with open lips that twitched in pleasure. Short, soft hair that fell over his forehead grazed the skin of Will's shoulder blades as the Alpha's spread hands on Will's belly stroked unsteady, warm circles into his mate's skin. And everything, everything burned, burned, burned. 

It burned Will deeply and completely and so, so unfairly in a sensation that balanced dangerously on the edge between heating and scorching. “Ohh. God,” Will grunted with a passion that was drawn up from his toes, and folded his hands over the back of his head as he stared between their bodies and willed himself to breathe. Hannibal pushed a little further, wider, and Will's insides stretched around him, spreading a heavy, dark fire in his belly that was made of a deep sense of wholehearted belonging, and a clawing, ripping sense of bone shattering weakness. “Ahh,” he huffed again, his throat tight against the effort of trying to hold himself still, calm, open and easy. It had never hurt before. But now, away from the blinding madness of his hormones, his whole body struggled around the impossible intrusion. Hot hands slid over his back, up his chest, down his sides, and Will curled up against his Alpha's soothing body to find solace in the love he was offered in the form of touch and skin. Open lips breathed unsteadily against the back of his neck and another push of hips opened Will further around his mate, meeting him by bearing down his own body against Hannibal's cock with more determination than sense. 

“Goddamnit,” he moaned wholeheartedly as his ass stretched and protested with a burn that offered painful, cruel and tight pleasure that brought Will a sudden need to claw himself out of his own skin. His fingers yanked at his own curls as strong hands came to rest on his hips, keeping him from moving any further. And Hannibal's body stilled inside him. “Will,” came a hot voice of breath, wet against his back, and Will wriggled against the sure hold on his bones. “Don't,” he hissed wildly, bringing his hands down from his head as he lifted his chin and saw Hannibal's glowing eyes hidden against the back of his spine as he leaned over his mate with a tension in his muscles that screamed the struggle of his control. Never once did Will feel the press of his Alpha body as heavy or straining, but the bulging arms he could see reflecting in the mirror showed how hard his Hannibal worked to keep the pressure off his mate.

“Don't stop,” Will pleaded, hitching the moan that pushed up when his body clenched around the throbbing cock out of its own accord. “Just...”, he closed his eyes, willing himself to adjust to the size and the sensation that was somehow so much more, new and intense. Hands slid back over his abdomen, his stomach, over his chest that caged his rapidly beating heart. “Slow,” Hannibal choked against him, shivering from his hips to his shoulders and beyond where Will could feel him. His eyes opened again and the vision of the strong, feral lion, draped over his back, shivering and holding him, breathing him like life and tasting him with open lips, was absolutely shattering, breaking and blossoming every inch of him.

“Slow,” Will agreed with a tremble in his voice, and Hannibal pressed his forehead to his mate's shoulder as he embraced him fully around his torso. Will felt intensely, irrevocably safe and right within these arms, yet had never been closer to being ripped apart, torn to pieces, in every sense of those praises. Willingly captured in the lion's den, as an equal or a prey, Will ground his teeth at the burn inside him and almost smiled. He was the lamb. But the lamb had grown its teeth. Hannibal's breath came out from a raw, tight throat in hard, rough pants that stroked Will's skin like a paintbrush, and never before had the Alpha felt so animalistic and fragile at the same time. And never before had Will been so vulnerable yet so real and strong beneath him. “Yes.”

Hannibal's arms came to wrap around his shoulder, caging him in as his hand linked in front of Will's sternum. Short, soft hair grazed against the blades of Will's shoulders, and in the mirror he could see his Alpha dropping his head forward in pure, torturing pleasure and patience as he moved his hips forward in a slow, agonizing pace. Will tilted his back further, opening up his body as he pushed himself up to meet his mate, while lowering his head in his arms on the counter top. “Yes,” he repeated, lost, as if answering in a state of unconsciousness as he lost himself in the feeling of Hannibal sliding slowly inside his body.

Another inch, and God, he was big. He wasn't halfway, and the feeling was already so full, so wide, with a demanding, slaughtering pleasure that came from the deepest possible inside out. It had a sharp edge like a razor blade, a warning glow like the heat of a nearby fire, but Will felt his Omega howling in completion and his limbs shivering in anticipation. And one nudge, one thrust of hips more, and Will tumbled hard into real pleasure. Right there, where the head nudged against his insides, was that place that curled his fingers and toes like a puppet on a string. He was lost in the fall, and wakened in the landing. “No,” he croaked, fighting himself up on his arms as nails clawed at the stone surface beneath him. He pushed himself back again, lost in a madding need, both his and his beast, as it overtook all his shaking senses, his throbbing mind, and his fear. “No, no.” his head shot up with a growl of passion and impatience as he searched and found his golden, tiger eyes. They pierced through him like a jolt of electricity, primal and wild, and Will knew in this moment he was created for nothing less than everything. They both were. “Not slow,” he said, his voice lost in breath and air. “Everything.” And the glint of burning gold turned dark with a copper glow that resembled blood in color and taste, pressing on the back of his tongue. 

And the need, the restraint, the beautiful patience turned to fire and ash, rebirth and wanton greed, and fuck, Will had never known beauty until Hannibal's eyes turned that deep shade of red and connected with him in the mirror. He flashed his fangs in wild, untameable desire and conquered his mate's body without any more restraint. With one deep and determined slide, they were connected. The Alpha growled, the Omega wailed, and both their bodies shuddered so violently Will feared for a moment they would collapse. And it hurt, God, it burned. It pressed away against all the tension and demanded more room than his body seemed willing to give, and never before had Will been consumed in such a destructive, outrageous glory that came with his surrender. “AH,” he was caught inside Hannibal's arms, feeling his body forced to open under the intrusion as his mate pushed inside him until there was nothing more to give, and drew back with a slick, sensitive drag of hard flesh and quivering muscles, before pushing the bulbous head right back inside the raw and throbbing, wet heat. “Hnn,” Hannibal moaned tightly against his back, as inelegantly as the man had ever managed, and Will watched his mate's eyelids flutter, his fingers flex as he drove his hips against Will's ass and fucked him with strokes as steadily as he still could. Will was captured within a dominant hold, lost to the point of being reduced to complete surrender, and found his mate in the exact same state.

“Oh God, oh,” Will gasped out when their eyes met in the mirror like a glowing beacon of primal, animal heat and light, and Hannibal pushed inside his body to drag his wide length firmly against the sensitive spot of Will's begging, pulsating prostate. “Yes, yes.” And fuck, that was everything. Tears welled in the back of his eyes when that merciless burn mixed beautifully with the ever wrecking pleasure that fought hard beneath his skin and traveled from root to tip of everything he possessed. “Fuck, ohhhhh.” His whole body sagged within strong arms when Hannibal fucked back into him, hitting that same, holy spot that took him higher, further, deeper, so close to breaking. The pain, the burn, it devoured that pleasure into one, tight sensation of flaming ecstacy that spread down his thighs, his balls, to the underside of his ribs and he submitted against the powerful hold his mate had on him as he let himself be conquered again and again by his Alpha pressing so overpoweringly in and against him. “Hannibal.”

Hannibal answered with a groan against his ear, driving him wild with the tingling sensation on the outside as well as the inside of his flushed skin, and Will felt his eyes rolling back as he dropped his head against his Alpha's shoulder. He was straightened, pushed up by hoisting arms until they were chest to back, a hot press of skin and soft hair and hard, wet flesh. “Yes,” Will moaned when Hannibal used the new angle to fuck up harder and deeper inside his mate, as one hand reached over Will's spasming abdomen to find his pink, wet cock. Hannibal held Will's torso with a tightening arm when he threatened to slump forward at the brutal strokes against his sensitive insides, and the warm hand that squeezed around his erection. “God yes, yes,” he moaned, so lost and boneless as he bathed in unbearable pleasure, and blistering, cruel heat.

Hannibal's grip tightened on him, pulling them even closer as lips brushed against the lobe of Will's ear. “Microphones,” the Alpha hissed against his skin, a consistent growl rolling from his throat as Will tried to fuck himself back on the Alpha when he grew impatient with the slowing pace. “I. Don't. Fucking. Care.”, the Omega lashed, pushing out the vicious words between sharp thrusts as he grabbed hold of the counter again and leaned on his stretched arms while his mate tore him apart so beautifully by pushing into his narrow body and stroking the hard flesh of Will's cock. “You will,” Hannibal groaned in his ear and Will turned his head to the side to push their lips together, open and searching, before his tongue licked against his mate's sharp fangs. He tasted the fire, coal, a stingray of orange light in the dull gray world, always. “Fuck.”

Hannibal cupped his chin between two fingers, kissing him back with lips and tongue as he continued to stroke his mate with a steady hand, too slow for the rhythm of his more and more franticly pumping hips. “I love seeing all of you,” he breathed in Will's ear when their eyes met again in the mirror, and watched Hannibal rank his eyes over his naked body, from all the angles this position allowed in front of the mirror. “And I want to, until forever.” Will growled openly at the confession whispered so heatedly against him as he pressed his face alongside Hannibal's and closed his eyes, feeling the hand on his swollen cock, the slide of his mate in and out of his body, and whimpered more pathetically than the beast inside him ever had.

Over and over, he was blinded with the drag of hard flesh inside of him, right where the nerves ended in a swollen bundle, combined with the building pleasure of gentle fingers on his cock, his balls, teasing him away from the end. “Fuck, I missed you,” he confessed inside a long moan. “Hannibal, I missed you,” and Will felt Hannibal nipping his teeth against his neck. His hips pushed in harder, further, and his large cock pried open every inch of his buckling mate. “You missed me,” the Alpha growled in response, filled with fire as he drew an open hand up to press against his Omega's throat. Will swallowed against the touch and moaned when his mate's hand tightened around his cock. “Yes,” he almost wailed, throwing his whole body back against the steady, strong wall that was his Alpha as he leaned himself completely into his mate, pliant and willingly fucked harder and deeper than he had thought possible.

Nails scratched against his glands beneath the skin of his throat, and teeth nipped almost painfully beneath his jaw as they rocked together, shaking and panting and quivering in a pool of melting lust and desperation. The storm that rose inside Will twirled dangerously around his head, breaking or polishing the different thoughts, the ideas, the untruths, until one thing remained upright and was repeated so permanently it felt tattooed in his brain, his skin, his tongue. I need you. I need you. I fucking need you.

“Bite me,” he heard himself breathing hard as he stretched himself fully back, and pushed his head on Hannibal's supporting shoulder. “Bite me.” The words were rushed, tripping in their need to be released, and Hannibal huffed against his neck like a wild beast. Fangs grazed the back of his neck, stinging his skin, threatening to break it. Will growled viciously at the feeling, and jerked his head to move himself away. “No, fuck,” he hissed, feeling his cock throbbing in Hannibal's pressing fingers, and his body clenching wildly around the hot erection inside of him. “Bond with me,” he hissed in furious passion, as he reached fingers to Hannibal's bulging upper arm, and sank short, sharp nails into his flesh. “Bite me.”

In his ear, Hannibal growled without air, leaving the sound to die in his throat as his hips stuttered, his hand squeezed tighter around Will's cock, and his red eyes hit Will in the mirror like a raging ball of fire. The hand on Will's throat tightened until it closed the Omega's windpipe completely, and his hips snapped punishingly fast and ferocious into the tight channel of Will's body. “Ask me again when I'm not perfectly targeting your prostate,” the Alpha growled viciously into his mate's ear, as Will's eyes bulged under the pressure against his windpipe, cheeks flushing hot red before draining to a pale blue. Everything was floating, light yet heavy, and pleasure built hard and fast inside his loins as he struggled weakly against the crushing fist around his throat. When Hannibal released him, Will's body slumped forward against the counter as he fought to hold himself up on his feet. The rush of oxygen to his brain made him lightheaded, and mingled deliciously with the tight strokes and dark, pumping blood that pressed heavy and deliciously inside him.

“Fuck,” Will growled back, baring his teeth like an untamed beast as he pressed back against his mate as hard as his strength allowed. “Do it. Bite me,” Blood welled under his fingernails, breaking the skin of Hannibal's arm as he pressed his head back again, presenting his throat to his mate who kept hammering into him with barbaric strength. Will opened his eyes to see up his mate's face, so close to him, and caught the blue glint around the sharp point of his fangs as his Alpha's eyes had widened and blown to a complete, dangerous black. His breathing had stilled, his muscles had tensed, and Will submitted himself completely to his mate by arching his body and tilting back his chin.

“You want it. Do it,” he repeated with a breath that released all air from his lungs, as he closed his eyes, and waded into the quiet of the stream. And Will felt himself falling inside himself, as if in slow-motion, as he melted against the hot, strong Alpha that was his destined mate, and waited for pain. 

And pain came. Pain came, hard. 

In one hard sweep of strong arms, Will's body was slammed forward with a brutal force that smashed the side of his face against cold stone, from temple to chin, and he felt his teeth rattling inside his mouth. Behind him, Hannibal growled furiously, leaned over him as he bit down his teeth into Will's trembling shoulder, breaking skin, welling and drinking blood, ripping into flesh with terrifying strength. And as he did, his hand gripped mercilessly around Will's cock, pumping him hard and fast as the Alpha forced his Omega's body down with his own and took him over, fucking into him with such a callous force that Will felt his head colliding with the mirrored wall before him.

He would have screamed out in pain, fury and shock, but all sound froze inside his lungs, and died inside his sore throat as he bled and shook and clenched all around Hannibal, and felt a mighty pressure bursting through his belly and spreading in his groin with a true, venomous bite. “Oh God, oh God,” Will cried when his body quivered uncontrolled within the arms that held him tight, and he felt his insides clench, ripple and flutter at the fast approaching avalanche that erupted like a true force of nature. And then it overtook him. It overtook everything.

His orgasm hit him like a twisting hurricane, ripping his feet from the soil inside his core and tensing his muscles like the squeeze of an iron fist. Will's eyes went blind, his ears deaf, his feet and hands lost the surface and his lungs rejected any attempt for air. There was nothing left but fire, and flood. It wrecked all of him, as he drowned in blistering, liquefied pleasure that melted his bones to ash. He felt his cock jerking and twitching in Hannibal's hand, as release splattered wet and far and more, more, more, over Hannibal's fingers, and against his own spasming belly. Inside, he clenched painfully around his Alpha and felt himself filled with an endless stream of hot, wet seed that spread a blissful fullness through the length of his quivering body. And he pulsed and pulsed around his Alpha in waves that could not be ridden or tamed, but that dominated him with fierce spasms that shook every inch. They stood like this, Will with his forehead pressed against the fogged mirror, trembling on the counter with his mate plugged deep inside his body, and a slippery hand on his sensitive, dripping cock. Not breathing, or screaming, or growling any longer, but lost in the deep silence of a world that united them, and consisted of everything too much to bear. Hannibal jerked his hips against his Omega, equally lost and drifting from the Earth's coil as his teeth rested against the circle of ripped flesh on Will's shoulder. And both had no breath to make a sound, or strength to move away. Both were melted and shaped against the other, holding on with hands and teeth and nails.

Will was lost when Hannibal's arms slipped away, and he felt the Alpha stumble backwards with a low whine when Will clenched tight around his mate's sensitive flesh. The Alpha slipped out, and without his weight to support him, Will's legs gave way within a moment, after which he stumbled away from the counter, and slid down to the bathroom floor. The tiles were cold against his knees, and hot seed and slick mingled on the tiles as he felt hot blood pouring down the skin of his back.

“Hannibal,” he gasped, his vision still hazy and his head spinning as he reached out with his hands to feel around him. “Hannibal.” And knees dropped beside him, arms wrapped around him, and before Will could blink another time, he had folded himself around his mate, and crawled into his lap like a lost and wounded stray. “Will,” the familiar voice stroked him, and Will buried his nose deep into his Alpha's damp hair. “God. Oh God,” he breathed, feeling tears spill into Hannibal's neck as he gasped for air and fought for sanity. He was rocked inside the embrace, mesmerizing and slow, as hands stroked his skin, but steered clear of the bite on his shoulder. “I have you,” Hannibal breathed against him, for the second time within that day, and Will clenched his eyes closed as he clung to his mate's neck. 

His vision returned, slowly, bit by bit, but the first thing he could see with clarity were the deep cuts on Hannibal's arms, where his nails had pressed into his flesh. He felt his blood slowing in his veins, his heart in his chest, the frantic air in his lungs, as a dark cloud of heavy pleasure remained and lingered in the depths of his belly. “God,” he whimpered again, breathing in his mate with every deep inhale as he felt his body spinning, tingling, stinging, everywhere. From his ass to his cock to his back to his eyes. His toes were cramped, as were his fingers, but his muscles smoothed out slowly in complete relaxation after its thunderous release. 

“Shhh, Carissimus,” Hannibal smoothed fingers through Will's hair as he held him. “Intimacy out of heat is a much more intense experience, in pain as well as in pleasure,” Will let the words wash over him with closed eyes, and just breathed inside his safe cocoon of warmth and aches. And all was still as Will let himself be held, and soothed, and loved, and blood colored his back red, and tear streaks marked his flushed face. He would bruise, later. His temple, the fingerprints on his throat, strong hands on his hips, and the inside of him too. The bite would scab over, and the itch would remind him, every day it was there, how it had come to be.

Hannibal twitched around him and Will whimpered when his mate attempted to detangle from him. “Come,” the Alpha said. “Let me clean you.” Will let out a whine that was smothered against Hannibal's neck, as he clung his arms tighter around him. “You don't want to be cleaned?”, the Alpha asked, and Will swallowed tightly. This contact, the scent and fluid on his skin, it could feed him with his mate's soothing, healing essence for days. It could make everything easier, maybe. It could also be pure torment.

“I should be,” he said weakly as he pulled his head back to look at his mate. Amber gold greeted him warmly, rather than the red and black that had eaten at his soul. He was helped to his feet, stronger now, but still unsteady, as Hannibal ran the shower and tested the water with one free hand, as the other remained curled around his mate's back. When the water was warm, but not hot, Will was maneuvered carefully under the stream, with Hannibal pressed close to his front, offering him support as Will wrapped his arms around his back, and leaned his head into his chest. They stood like that, together, safe and silent, as reality slowly poured itself back into Will's ears, his eyes, his mouth, right into his pumping heart. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

What had he done? 

“I bit your shoulder,” Hannibal spoke against wet hair as Will's shoulders twitched against the sting of water against the open wound. His insides throbbed, as his thighs were rinsed of the sticky trails of slick and cum. “You did,” Will said quietly before Hannibal pressed his lips to his temple as he rubbed his hands over the Omega's skin to help clean his tired body. Will opened his eyes and watched drops on his lashes. “I suppose I should thank you,” he said, his voice a whisper beneath the falling water, as he pressed his forehead to Hannibal's sternum. Fingers danced around the bite on his back, and Hannibal's chest fell with a deep sigh.

“I apologize for hurting you,” he said, honest grief in his voice. “I lacked the control to stop.” and Will closed his eyes again. Hannibal had fought everything inside him not to bite Will's throat, he knew it. His instincts, and his own deep desires. “No. No,” he huffed against wet skin, curling his fingers against his mate's sides. “God, no,” he laughed a breath before pressing his lips to the hallow of Hannibal's sternum. 

Goddammit. He had asked for a bite, a bond, in a way Hannibal had already predicted he would, that first time he had come to visit him after his heat. _“Part of you wants me to sweep you up and bring you into our lives together without giving you the choice. There would be no fault, no guilt, no responsibility. No one to blame Will Graham.”_

How easy would it have been to bond now and blame the animal, the sex, the separation. How easy it would have been not to be blamed, or to take responsibility. “I'm sorry,” he said, and his mate inhaled, sharp and fast, before his shoulders sagged again. Then, hands came to push him back, so their eyes could meet under the stream. “I will not bond with you as a means to escape something you do not want,” Hannibal told him, soft, rueful, with loving fingers on Will's temples. “As opposed to it being something you choose for yourself.” Will breathed hard, a stutter in the deep inhale, as he pressed his face back against Hannibal chest with determined desperation not to think of his own actions, or Hannibal's, or how it made him feel. He couldn't think about it. He wouldn't think about it. 

Will bit down on his own teeth. “Hold me,” he begged, like a child, and arms tightened around him within an instant. And it was like that, for minutes, hours, maybe. Maybe it was merely seconds, but inside Will, time was lost, and he never wished to find it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry you guys, I skipped a week, after promising you smut!! Youhopefully know that I am very loyal with the weekly updates, but I got sick during the holidays and got behind! But I am back on track now, all the way! I hope you all had amazing holidays and I wish you all sooooo much Hannibal/Hannigram love for 2018!! Together we can make it wonderful! I also want to thank ever single one of you for making my 2017 so amazing for me! I am forever grateful to know you guys!!!  
> This chapter, well......I hope you enjoyed it despite being angsty! You know I do that sometimes, but it is all for the character development!! ;-) All my love!!!


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was in the dark, on his queen size motel bed, fully dressed and sprawled out on top of his made sheets. Around him, the room was orderly, undisturbed. Even the stack of stolen discs remained neatly piled on the corner of his desk, just like he'd left them. Tomorrow, he would have to find a good hiding spot for them, he reminded himself, as he sank deeper into the mattress. But not now. Because now, he was afraid to get up, to move, to breathe. No one had come to thrash his belongings, or rummage through his things in his absence, no. No one had come in. But he wasn't alone.

Will had slept for hours. 

Exhaustion had crept over him like a warm, weighing blanket the moment he had stretched himself out on the single, prison bed, maneuvered there by Hannibal's guiding hands on his back. The Alpha had held him through it, curled behind his mate with strong arms folding him into a safe, sheltering nest that warmed his skin from nose to socked feet. But when a guard had disturbed their cocoon of silence with a dinner tray, Will knew it was time for him to leave. He couldn't stay the night. He had already crossed too many barriers within the day. 

When he walked out into the cool evening breeze, with shimmering streetlights illuminating the twilight sky, Will felt himself empty and disoriented, but stronger and steadier than he had in days. The hollow, dried up gap inside him was once more red with blood and pink with life, because Hannibal's presence, his touch, his voice, had cured him from that hideous pain that had eaten away at everything still worth eating. On the way back to his motel, he tucked his cold hands into the pockets of his coat and kicked at the pebbles and leafs before his feet as he remembered the conversation they'd had before he left, as he sat on the bed and tugged his shoes over his heels.

“I do not wish to control you, Will,” Hannibal had said, startling the Omega with an unexpected confession as he looked up from his shoes through his fringe. He had seen something unconstrained swirling in those amber eyes as Hannibal had held his gaze with an palpable tightness around his features. “Not anymore,” he'd added and Will tightened the lace before he sat up straight and watched his Alpha's forehead deepen. A frown was rare on the well-controlled, porcelain surface of Hannibal's mask.

“Do you believe differently?”, the Alpha asked him, seamlessly composed on the smooth stone surface but stirring thick like honey and gold beneath the depths of his eyes. Rarer still, a question, a search for confirmation from his Alpha. Will watched and heard the thin, skillfully hidden trace of desperation lacing around his mate like fish thread. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue as his fingers flexed against the mattress. “I believe that your ideas about what is best for me, do not always correspond with mine.” He pushed himself to his feet, steadied by Hannibal's hand on his elbow, and rose to meet the turmoil in his Alpha's eyes. Those lashes, those scars, dips of skin and curves of bone, he knew them as well as his own. 

“I also believe you are unwilling to experience the world from any other point of view than your own,” Will said, smiling despite the words when a warm hand came to cup his face. He could tell there was a battle going on inside his mate, as he watched Hannibal's uncontrolled need to reach out and touch him, far beyond his humanity. The lingering hand on his cheek, and the answering smile, made Will realize that Hannibal didn't resent this weakness, but rather seemed genuinely content with every new pull from his Alpha's strings. “Not at all, Will,” he said, as he brushed a thumb over his mate's nose, lingering on his lips before he brought his hand back to his own chest. “I understand my own desires,” he smiled, heat in his eyes, “And I am not afraid to sink my teeth into what I want.” Will didn't miss the teasing glint that burned inside the glowing gold, and he snorted at the reference as he felt the throbbing of the open flesh on his shoulder. “Really?”, he huffed in reaction to Hannibal's choice of words, breaking the spell with an unimpressed cock of his eyebrow, an unavoidable pull up at his lips and hands deep inside the pockets of his jeans. 

“I know you, Will. I know every inch,” Hannibal's eyelids lowered as he tilted his chin and gazed upon Will like the majestic beast that lay beneath the skin. “I have always felt your yearning for guidance into a world where you belong, just as I have felt my own need to share what my life has to offer to someone who appreciates the beauty of it,” he said, as if reciting a poem, and Will smiled again, breaking the insisting eye contact. “You make everything difficult,” he confessed half-heartedly, admitting the affect of the luring speech of his mate without having to use the words. Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself and stared down his feet. “I'm trying to resist you.”

He heard the silence, saw the prison loafers come into his vision, but when Hannibal leaned himself closer, Will didn't step away. “This is not about resisting me,” The Alpha spoke, his voice a low hum against his ear. “You are at war with who you are, and who you were taught to wish to be.” Their foreheads were close to brushing, and Hannibal placed one loose curl behind Will's ear. “But even without a bond, I can feel how deeply you crave a life with me.”

Will did step back this time, eyes back on Hannibal as fatigue took over his mind and body like the steaming heat of a sauna. “It's not about what I crave,” he said, between his teeth, shaking his head and wishing he could deny Hannibal's words with just a simple no. Yes, yes he did feel... he did want... but there was all this death and pain and Molly and so, so much blood. “It's about what I choose.” Will closed his eyes at the memory of when he had made that choice, that very first time. If he had just, just run away with Hannibal when he'd asked him to....

“Do you remember when we first met?”, Hannibal interrupted, and Will's eyes burned back to his. “Of course I remember,” he said, pulling the image to the front of his mind like a picture, a screening of a film he could replay and analyze from every desired angle. He could, he had, just like every moment he had shared with Hannibal. The Alpha smiled, and Will knew the clarity must have been visible in his eyes. “When I saw you, when our eyes met halfway into the conversation, my life went from a sonnet to a symphony,” Hannibal said, a real, tender touch of happiness deeply engraved on the lines of his face as he spoke, and Will closed his eyes at the sight, and the expansion of his own heart beneath his chest.

“I knew you were mine, and you knew I was yours,” Hannibal spoke, and Will let his head roll to the side, coming to face the empty, plain glass that caged him inside the room. Hannibal's body moved closer without touching, but enough to crowd. “You're still mine, Will.” He hummed, and the Omega felt his skin tighten, his blood pump and his jaw tremble as Hannibal's nose touched the shell of Will's ear. “I'm waiting for you and nothing will ever change that.” The warmth of their bodies touched, even when skin did not, and Will lowered his head as his tongue slid against his small fangs.

“You don't need to convince me of the authenticity of our connection. I've told you,” he said, as he looked back up at his Alpha, close enough to breath. “As we came to know each other, I felt and craved it too.” He watched Hannibal's pupils dilate as warmth spread in his belly. “For the first time in my life, something felt like it was happening beyond the thick, gray membrane around my brain.” His lips twitched at how accurate this words felt on his tongue. “I felt alive.”

He swallowed down the grief as Hannibal stared at him with his arms and hands beside his body, still. He looked unreal, like a dead tree in the playful wind. Will looked at him, and felt his own eyes soften at the sight. “It was real,” he said, pushing his own hands deeper in the narrow pockets of his jeans. “But I already told you our time together was an endless chain of mutual destruction.” Wills eyes fluttered briefly to the ceiling as he dragged the bottom of his shoe over the hardwood floor. Abigail, Alana, poor, poor Beverly. “And that of those around us.”

Hannibal breathed with his entire body as he stood and blinked, before tilting his head with a smooth stretch of his neck. “Because we were divided,” he spoke, theatrics Will knew came natural to his Alpha. Hannibal's eyes moved over him like a falling water drop before he brought them back to the Omega's. “Apart, we are imprisoned by the agony of our disjunction, but together...” His voice was almost dreamlike, longing and lingering as Will clucked his tongue. “Bonded, you mean?”, he broke through the soft edges of the scene and Hannibal stepped even closer into their circle as he nudged his nose along Will's with a soft purr. “We were meant to be bonded from the start,” he said, astute. “You would have known me and I you.” Fingers traveled up against the inside of Will's wrist, still bare outside his pockets. “We would have spared each other all that pain.” Will's arm twisted as he brought his hand out of his pocket and pushed his palm against his mate's. “The need to be connected has always overpowered our other instincts, and left them unreliable,” Hannibal's lips spoke close to his cheek, and Will held on to sheer willpower not to turn his head and follow. “We lost each other in the haze.”

Their hands pressed, but their fingers didn't lace inside the hold as Will looked up at his mate with a humorless smile. “Then why didn't I present?”, he asked, openly frustrated with either scenario as he clenched his teeth to stop a pressing snarl from his restless Omega. “If we needed that bond, why...” But Hannibal was calm, and gripped his fingers loosely around Will's wrist as if to drain his frustrations. “Because you're an empath,” he said, sure of his words like he ever was. “Your beautiful mind was always an open faucet, and you've taught yourself very skillfully how to close yourself off from the world. If not, you would have spilled inside those killers until all barriers would have been washed away.” Hannibal squeezed his wrist gently, once, beneath the bone. “Uncle Jack would have let you drown.”

Will's teeth unclenched, both at the touch and the words, as he let his wrist rest in Hannibal's gentle hold. It did drain the pain, being connected by skin. “I couldn't reach that part of you,” Hannibal said, letting his eyes rest just above the top of Will's head. Will watched the amber stare that reached far beyond this room. “God knows you've tried,” he said, watching the Alpha's lips and wrinkles smoothen out until he rested easy on his bones. “God knows,” he said, before their eyes locked again. The hand around his wrist released him, but Hannibal didn't step back from their close space.

“Until I let my guards down,” Will said, stretching his fingers around nothing as his skin longed to chase the heat of contact. “When I was far and long away from Jack and his homicide cases.” He grimaced at his own words and let the inside of his cheek roll between his teeth. “And you.” And a hand came to rest on Will's forearm. Not heavy, not clenching or clutching, but open and warm. “Was I away?”, Hannibal asked him, quietly, and Will was helpless against the need to lean in so close he could almost brush Hannibal's cheek with his lashes. “Or was I there with you every moment, like you were with me?” 

Will breathed a long breath between pursed lips as the hand on his arms came around to cup his elbow. They were close, and together, and in Hannibal's eyes burned the warm fireplace of home after a long winter's day out. “Stay,” Hannibal said. “Sleep.” And Will huffed at the weakness that overtook his bones at the inviting, attentive words that brushed his ear. All his life he had longed for someone to come in, take the hard labor, the uncertainty and the loneliness from his hands and take care of him. No one had ever taken care of him. He wanted nothing more than to be understood and heard and fought for, secure and warm and comfortable. Love. Never in his life had he been offered even a few of those things, but Hannibal was offering them all. Just when he had accepted that was world was hard and cold, and that the pain was not to be fought, but the unavoidable, unbeatable mold in your home. It would return after every attempt and brush stroke to make it disappear.

“Hannibal,” he said, breathing in deep and stuttering out as the hand stroked up the back of his arm. “I'm afraid.” It was few words, but Hannibal heard everything that he couldn't say instead, and as their eyes met again, Hannibal wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed Will close against his shoulder in a smothering, sheltering embrace. “I know,” he said, and nothing else. Will closed his eyes and fought not to bite into the fabric of Hannibal's jumpsuit to hide a scream. The deaths, the betrayal, the pain, Molly. There was so much left unmended, and so many lives balanced in his hand. 

Hannibal turned towards his mate and stepped closer, leaning forward to cup Will's chin and bringing him in for a gentle brush of lips that spoke of romance and eternity and rose petals on a bed with drapes. Will melted forward, pressing lips wholly against Hannibal's with an unavoidable hum in his throat. When Hannibal pulled back, his eyes were soft, that fireplace on Christmas eve. Not everlasting, but providing what was needed, here and now.

The embrace lasted until the guard came to collect the untouched tray, and Will left with him to the other side of the wall.

When he pushed the knob of his motel room door, he was relieved to find it locked, and searched his pockets for the key.

**

He was in the dark, on his queen size motel bed, fully dressed and sprawled out on top of his made sheets. Around him, the room was orderly, undisturbed. Even the stack of stolen discs remained neatly piled on the corner of his desk, just like he'd left them. Tomorrow, he would have to find a good hiding spot for them, he reminded himself, as he sank deeper into the mattress. But not now. Because now, he was afraid to get up, to move, to breathe. No one had come to thrash his belongings, or rummage through his things in his absence, no. No one had come in. But he wasn't alone.

There was an elephant in his room. A big elephant with dark gray skin and red eyes and horns that reached through the styrofoam ceiling. It was twice the size of the familiar feathered stag, and there was nothing he could possibly do to make it go away. It wouldn't let him sleep, or eat, or watch TV, because that big, dark elephant stomped his feet and blew his trunk and shook his head until his big ears flapped like wings in the wind, every time Will tried to think of something else. 

And like the stag had been there to give form to his untasty thoughts, the elephant was here to remind him of one single thing. He had asked Hannibal to bite him. He had asked him, begged him, to bond with him. He had looked into those copper eyes and saw warmth, as well as heat, as well as scorching, merciless fire and piles and piles of ash. All a different spoke on the very same wheel. He had seen it, and he had wanted it, without allowing his mind to run and cool. He had seen his future there, amongst the warmth, the heat, the fire and ash and it had showed him the most vibrant colors in his existence. He wanted that bite and he wanted that bond inside the swirl of wakening pleasure and the beauty he found behind the lifted veil. And he had begged him: bite me, bond me, take me, have me. Be with me, help me, and make everything else just go away.

And if Hannibal had been nearly as self-absorbed as Will had always believed him to be, he would have officially been Mr. Will Lecter - Graham, or Graham – Lecter, at this very moment. A bite on his throat, like a ring on his finger. They would be united on the prison bed, never to be separated. But he was here, and Hannibal was there. Because Hannibal said no.

He flinched when he touched the side of his face, feeling the tender swelling on his cheek and temple where he had been smashed into the stone counter. There were bruises on his neck, a tight scab on his shoulder and his entire lower region throbbed with effort and thorough use. Will placed his hands before his eyes and bit down on his lip to keep himself from making noise. The pain, the pleasure, the memory, the shame...

Hannibal had refused to bond with him, believing Will wanted to try and avoid having to choose between the other options the world had to offer him. He wouldn't have to hurt or reject or define his own desires that way. And part of it was true. Will sighed deeply with his gaze on the empty ceiling, as he tried to keep himself from staring at whatever moved in the corner of his eyes. No, he didn't want the persistent, digging pain and the everlasting ache and the questions, the explanations, the unbearable pity. Yes, the gray outline of a future made of secrets, ongoing hardship, love without connection against the promise of the ecstasy of color and life and transparency within the windowless walls of his mind had been the drive behind his plea. He had surrendered to the part of him that didn't want to feel or think or remember whatever came before. The part of him that was bigger than his Omega alone.

Will swallowed against his thick throat and ran a hand over the bruised flesh. He felt like the crack addict that slept on that filthy bench in the park sometimes. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Hannibal. All of him, always, completely, forever. But like the crack addict's choices became questionable in the light of morality and care for humanity, Hannibal wasn't the right choice to make. No one else would think so. He couldn't think so either. If he chose a life of honesty, morality, and believed in the beauty of helping, protecting and sheltering rather than crushing, he would have to choose as a loyal, righteous, honest man. In that life, Hannibal was not the right choice.

“Fuck off,” Will told the elephant that stared him down, no matter what way he turned himself on the mattress. He could weep from the amount of guilt and shame that thrashed inside, enhanced like a snowball from the equally present want, longing, desire. Why hadn't he been stronger? Why couldn't he just be fucking stronger? Why had he caved and crashed and laid down his raw and naked fears and wants in Hannibal's presence? A fuck could be forgiven, but begging for a bite, a bond, and then going back to your loving wife when you're refused? It was undignified. Pathetic. How could he convince anybody, himself included, that Hannibal was not what he wanted, truly, after that? 

His shoulder throbbed against the sheets, his face felt hot and his ass clenched painfully around nothing as he lay staring at the ceiling. He could still feel the fingertips against his throat and the feeling was more of a comfort than he would have wished it to be. He reached for his lips, tender from the use, and closed his eyes in the darkness. Carissimus. He remembered the word, the roll of Hannibal's tongue, and smiled ruefully into the night. Hannibal had called him Carissimus. The first term of endearment shared between them. Latin, maybe. He knew what it meant. He knew it spoke of love. Beloved. Dearest.

A pet name, like one a couple would exchange. A very unusual, old-fashioned, well educated couple. Will bit his lip and blinked his eyes back open. Even behind his lids he could see the angry red eyes and the sharp pointing tusks, making him groan his frustration as he reached for a pillow to place over his face. Oh yes, couples. He ground his teeth when he remembered, but this Dragon thing was not something he was going to break his head over for another night, he had already decided. Hannibal said he wasn't interested in his advances, and true or not, Will himself was going home in two days.....it didn't have a place here. And he refused to make space for it. “Fuck him,” Will growled under his breath, his face a permanent shade of deep pink behind the pillow, “and fuck you too.”

The Elephant huffed dangerously through his trunk and Will winced when he tried to roll himself away. He had ripped the scab on his shoulder, he was certain, and indeed felt a hot spill of fresh blood beneath his clinging shirt. He wondered, did Hannibal feel the sting of his arm as he lay in the dark? Did he feel those vicious half circles where Will had sunken his short but sharp nails deep into his flesh? Pained, he smiled into the dark. He really hoped he did.

**

“Will. Have a seat,” Alana gestured kindly to the chair opposite hers as she greeted him from behind her desk. The door was closed behind him by the guard who escorted him there. “I'm glad you came,” Alana smiled, her blue eyes bright with what Will could see was not mere hospitality, but a flash of fierce determination. “I would take your coat, but...”, she gestured to her walking cane that was propped up against the side of her desk as she tapped the side of her bad leg with a flat hand. 

“I'm sorry to hear it's still bothering you,” Will offered politely as he shrugged off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair before he sat himself in the comfortable, cognac leather. “It's the humid weather,” Alana spoke with open distaste as light rain speckled the view from the spacious office. “It's usually not that bad anymore.” With a quick glance down Will spotted a sight he hadn't expected to find resting under the table. Pumps. High heeled, black and lacquered. Oh, vanity.

“I want to say, I'm glad you've visited Hannibal yesterday,” Alana said, silently offering him coffee she poured from a thermos, and he accepted the cup pushed towards him with two hands. Black. She remembered. “You do look better.” Will swallowed as he watched the dark coffee shake and slosh against the rim and kept his eyes where the hot liquid spilled slightly on the saucer beneath. “How do you feel?”, Alana pressed on the other side, and Will forged a smile on his mouth before he looked back up at his friend. His former friend. Head of the hospital.

“I'm fine,” he said, seeing an expression flicker past her eyes that reminded him strongly of the way Doctor Hammings looked every time he used that word. Disbelief, agitation and impatience. She blinked at him, reached for her own coffeecup and took a slow sip to regroup, or perhaps to repress any response she would come to regret later. She settled on, “Right”, and pressed her lips together in a tight smile before she reached for a thick, blue binder on her desk. “Well, you know the reason I asked you here is to discuss the future,” she said, opening the file to the first page. “Regarding both you, Hannibal and Baltimore hospital.”

Will blinked, nodded and swallowed as he reached back for his cup of coffee. She had told him this before, probably, but his brain seemed very one-tracked on what it would allow to stick these days. This visit, for example, was heavily overshadowed by his mind still lingering one foot deep in Hannibal's bathroom. “Have you been in contact with your lawyer?”, Alana asked through the steam behind his eyes and Will quickly looked up to see her leaning forward on her desk with her elbows planted on either side of the open binder. “No,” he almost choked on a sip of coffee. “No, I haven't.”

He watched the stiff nod and the tense, red lips as Alana sat across from him with files as thick as books and a twirling pen between her fingers. Was he supposed to have done that? And why? Will watched rings appear in his coffee as his hands started to tremble. Were there things happening, for, about or against him, that he wasn't aware of? Alana smiled kindly and encouragingly at the confusion that etched across his face, but Will watched that fierce blue sparkle of determination and fierceness, and recognized it now as fear. He was missing something. “What I want to do today is discuss your options,” Alana said, “and show you what I think would be the right way to go about this.” And that was it. Will stirred his coffee with the teaspoon on the saucer, despite having nothing to stir through it. There were options, and some of them didn't sit right with the hospital. Or Alana. 

“Alright. Go on,” he encouraged her with a gentle nod and an open gesture with the hand that did not held the coffee cup. Alana sighed, and watched him with what he could have taken as a hostile stare, but Will could see she was reflecting inwards, contemplating and weighing before she did, indeed, go on. “I need to know your plans, Will,” she decided, rather forward, and Will swallowed his sip trough a tight throat. His plans. The spoon slipped from his fingers back onto the saucer and they both winced at the loud clang of metal on porcelain. “Sorry,” he mumbled, but she waved him away. Plans. He wasn't thinking long term. He wasn't even thinking weeks or months. Right now, he looked at the days, the hours, the minutes away or together. He had just one plan, and that seemed to grow more and more impossible with every one of those passing minutes. 

“Well, I told Molly I'm coming home,” he answered, hiding his unsteady lips behind his cup as his gaze shifted restlessly from the desk to his shoes, to the rain against the window. “When?”, Alana urged and Will lowered his coffee with rapid blinking eyes. His forehead twitched as he shook his head, as if overcome with a nervous tic. His long curls waved before his vision; freshly washed, since yesterday. “I-I don't know,” he swallowed. “In about a week?” The balls of his feet started bouncing his knees under the desk as he breathed steadily through his nose. “A week from now?”, Alana asked. “Or a week from the moment your heat ended?” Will cleared his throat, and wiped one hand on the jeans that covered his thigh. “I don't know,” he said again, and sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “The Doctor said one week, at least.”

Without another word, Alana reached inside a drawer, collecting two sheets of paper and she placed them on the desk between them. Will spotted the numbers, the names, the codes, and knew just what he was looking at. “I've been so bold to buy you these,” she said, a small smile on her face. Will's lips pressed together at the sight as he eyed the little blue plane in the corner of the sheet. There was a plan here, with expectations of a heartfelt thank you. “Plane tickets,” Will said instead. A ticket home. A ticket to Molly, the dogs, the snow. “It's a two-way ticket,”Alana said, taking a sip from her coffee in a way Will would define as self-congratulatory. “You would be leaving next Monday, and you can return whenever you think is the right time.” And Will swallowed down the sour bile that rose up his throat at the suggestion. He hated it when people mingled with his life. He hated it when people arranged his business without his knowledge. He hated to be pushed and handled like a weakling, like many had ever since he had presented Omega.

And he hated it when his Omega howled and crawled and bit around him at the mention of leaving. “You arranged this,” he said, void of emotions as he placed his fingers on the tickets and dragged them towards him as Alana nodded once, with her eyes closed and her lips pushed up. Good Samaritan. “I felt it would be good for you to see your wife, after this,” she said sweetly, as she gestured towards Will in a way that seemingly should explain what 'this', she was referring to. “But I also think the separation between you and Hannibal should not last for too long.”

Will cast his eyes down again and read his own name on the white sheet of paper before him over and over and over again, until the silence pressed hard upon the room. “What do you think?”, Alana asked, as her high heel began to tap under the desk. Will looked up, and watched her self-righteousness replaced by her poorly hidden insecurity. “Thank you,” he said, not wanting to deepen the matter, and Alana nodded with soft eyes, so full of understanding. Will felt his skin itch beneath his clothes as she poured more coffee into his cup without inquiring after the need. 

“You and Hannibal are exceptional mates,” she said, as she refilled her own cup. “And Doctor Hammings has explained to me how defined the connection between you already is.” Will watched the coffee ripple in the cup and took a sip too hot for his lips and tongue. He swallowed, and it left everything inside feeling raw with the burn. “Yes,” he offered, after a moment of silence, and felt Alana's eyes tugging impatiently at him. “But he told me I was fine.” There was a muffled noise that sounded like a tongue clacking against the roof of a mouth, before Alana's fingernails started scraping the sides of the stack of paper before her. “He told me you are on a fine line,” she corrected him sharply. “It seems more and more likely that the two of you are a Per mutua nexis couple.”

Will sighed, openly enough for it to be considered rude, as he threw a pointed look from the rim of his coffeecup. “I know all of this, Alana,” he bit. “It doesn't change...” And then he stopped. He paused, he struggled and inside he drew a blank looking for the appropriate word. Anything, he had planned to say. Things, he could have used. Their eyes met over the desk, and his fingers loosened around the cup in his hand as he quickly put it down. It was so easily said, but of course it was a lie. He knew more and clearer how much of a lie it was turning out to be. Of course it changed things. Of course it changed everything.

“Will, are you going home?”, Alana asked him, the blood beneath her skin retreating into the blue veins. “Are you going back to your wife?” Will breathed as he felt his heart thumping louder and faster inside his chest. “I...”, he gasped unsteadily. His wife. His wife Molly. He wished he could recall what she looked like, in this moment. “As the head of this hospital, I need to know your plans,” Alana spoke, her tone a little higher, her voice a little bit more business. She reached for the plane tickets before him and pressed her fingers against the paper. “Are you going to use these?”

Will's cup was trembling inside his clutch as he blinked back memories of Hannibal inside his cell. “Yes, yes,” he spoke without air. Bite me, he had asked Hannibal, only yesterday. “I have to go to Molly,” he heard himself say today. Alana sighed, a glimmer of relief, as she leaned forward and folded her hands together. “And you will return for your heats, or when the separation becomes unbearable? Is that still the plan?” She asked, using her sharp stare to force steady eye contact. Will blinked and willed himself to release a steady breath trough pursed lips. “Yes,” he answered meekly, before tearing his eyes from the clutching stare that made him feel a child.

Alana's shoulders sagged, as she allowed herself to slump back down into her chair. “OK,” she nodded, playing with the pen between her fingers as she stared at the binder before her. “It's important, because there are some legal matters I have to take into account.” Will's lips twitched. He was well aware that he had been steered clear of something she didn't want to breach. She put the pen on the desk and linked her fingers. “If you are Per mutua nexis and you choose to bond,” she started carefully, resting her fingers against her lips, “there are some grounds on which you could fight Hannibal's imprisonment in court and try to get him released into your custody.”

Ah. Will watched Alana's eyes burn hard with militant determination. “My custody?”, he asked with a low frown on his brow. Hannibal in his custody. There was a quick vision inside Will's mind of Hannibal living in his house, wearing a schoolboy uniform and bringing home report cards, as well as dead classmates. He huffed out a laugh and Alana's eyes twitched. “Yes. Will, I must tell you, the board and myself have already agreed that we will not support any attempt to see Hannibal out of captivity. We will fight any decision supporting his discharge, should you decide to...” Will watched her hair move out of its perfectly styled coup with every wild shake of her head as her cheeks flushed bright and eyes bulged every time she clenched her teeth around a vowel. He would have found this hot, years ago. Now it secretly went straight to a drawer in his file cabinet called 'malicious pleasures.'

“No. No, Alana,” he interrupted when he found the strength for mercy. He shook his head and held up a hand as she paused, breathing higher in her chest. “Trust me when I say I don't want any responsibility regarding Hannibal Lecter,” he said, sipping his coffee as he watched the world fall off of her poor shoulders. He pitied her. He knew she probably had been having sleepless nights over this possibility for more than a week. That he, Will, would try to get Hannibal out of his cell to live with him. The chances he would succeed were minimal, of course, the costs extraordinary and the trial would take years to complete, but there was a chance. And that chance would risk everything that Alana held dear in the world.

“Oh. Oh, Good,” she breathed, momentarily stunned, and wiped a damp spot of sweat off her temple. “That's good.” Will nodded against his cup and sighed away the rising compassion he felt fizzing up from his belly. Of course they wouldn't try to arrange this legally. If Alana had known Hannibal at all, she would have known he always found a way to manipulate the world to fit into the shape he desire it to be. He wasn't locked, he was waiting. “I'm very pleased to hear it.” Alana breathed again, nodding back as she fingered the binder before her. “I'm sure,” Will smiled, kindly, wondering briefly if Hannibal had concrete plans for her and her family, would or when he choose to get out. Knowing him, there were drawings, written scenario's, recipes...

“You would agree to unlimited visiting rights?”, Alana said, apparently feeling generous after the turn this conversation had made and Will shrugged. “I suppose,” he said. “I'm not signing anything, but...” but Alana waved his words away, no longer putting pressure on answers. “Call your lawyer when you get home. I'll see to it that we will settle this,” she spoke. She then offered him more coffee, which he declined, and then something stronger, to which he agreed. Sipping on expensive bourbon, they found themselves in front of the large window that stretched from ceiling to floor and overlooked the park. Alana's leg seemed a lot better, after so much weight had been lifted.

She sighed as she watched the gray clouds and dancing raindrops that ticked away on the glass. “Can I... can I assume you are not going to bond with him?”, she then asked as she turned towards him. Will looked down at the park, recognizing the Bloodhound he'd seen earlier, as he tried to chat up some mixed breed of Husky. “Will?”, Alana said, and he clenched his teeth. If she would ever listen to yesterday's audiotape, she would know how out of hands things had gotten. He couldn't guarantee... 

“I have no plans to bond with him.” He said, eyes on the dogs and lips on the glass. The thick liquid burned his throat and warmed his belly. “That is...a careful way of phrasing your answer.” Alana commented after seconds passed, and Will finally tore his eyes from the world and looked at the blue beside him. “It is,” he said, before closing his lips back around the glass rim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo....some of you are gonna wanne murder me for getting Will those plane tickets XD   
> I promise the last sentence of the last chapter will not be..."Goodbye Hannibal, I'm leaving forever now."! :-P   
> Love you guys, you are so nice and amazing and YAY, I am back on track with my writing now! You motivate the shit out of me.....or......the writing out of me might be better phrasing ^.^ <3 All my love!


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will reached for his keys as he came to a halt before his motel door, and turned the lock before he stepped into the darkness. Inside, he flicked the switch, turned to close the door behind him and reached for the zipper of his coat. It was all done quickly, within the same instant and without hesitation or a moment's pause. And before the scent could hit him, his arm was suddenly twisted behind his back, as his head smashed against the closed motel door. The bones in his nose crunched inside his head as his already sore cheekbone and temple bounced back against the painted wood. He grunted in surprise, roared in anger and tears sprung to his eyes when the scent of stinging spices and smoke filled his lungs as he struggled against a tall, strong body that pressed against him.

**First fic art ever! Made by the amazingly talented and insanely wonderful[Erodingthebluff](http://erodingthebluff.tumblr.com/)**

Alana let the rubber tip of her cane touch the floor in rhythm with her steps as she walked Will back to the entrance hall. Her weight did not rest on the polished wood, however, and her heels clicked lively on the stone floor as they engaged in polite conversation. Work was busy, the weather disappointing, her holidays unplanned, and neither one of their minds was truly present during the necessary small talk. But both halted before the basement stairs, simultaneously, as their eyes met in a sudden, strained understanding.

“Do you...?”, Alana started carefully as she let her eyes run down the steps. Will followed her gaze and felt the torching flare in the already stirring heat in his belly, the uncontrolled fluttering in his throat and the yanking pull behind his pelvis bone. There was an involuntary twitch around his lips as he stared down into the dark, knowing that the answer should always be no. “Yes,” he breathed, nodding once as he watched the shifting noses of his shoes. “Just a talk.” He openly winced at his own words, but it didn't matter. He couldn't stay away. What had happened between them had shook everything from its proper place, and he needed to know where things had landed inside his Alpha. He longed to see that hot spark of life, if it had not yet been reduced back to silent torment. Just a talk. More, he couldn't justify.

“I'll walk you there,” Alana said, ignoring Will's flustered state as her high-heeled legs moved her gracefully down the stairs. Will took a deep breath before following behind, and once down, he was quick to notice the inmates were uncharacteristically silent when the head of the institution moved past the glass of their cells. They refrained from their usual insults and catcalls, and aside from a rare greeting, most prisoners remained completely quiet. They feared her. They respected her. She had, after all, the power to make their everlasting residence that little bit more comfortable, or hell.

“Call for a guard when you're done,” Alana instructed as she unlocked the door to Hannibal's cell. She wasn't going in with him, and for that he was grateful. The last thing he desired to witness now was yet another pissing contest between his mate and his mate's ex. He shook hands with Alana, and heard her heartfelt thank you for his attendance and her request for him to be in contact before his flight home. “Take care, Will.” They then said their goodbyes, and Will stepped into the familiar space as he heard the door lock behind him.

“Will,” Hannibal was on his feet, near the glass, close to the open holes that took away that little bit of barrier between them. His eyes were lit and Will swallowed at the addictive sight. He was illuminated, beautifully alive after their close contact. It wouldn't last for long. “Come in,” he said, a plea hidden inside the gentle command as they locked eyes. Will walked to the opposite side of the glass where Hannibal's fingers already reached for him, sighing his frustration at his own limitations as he pressed his head against the glass. “Not today,” he spoke through clenched teeth and reached his own fingers up to link them with Hannibal's. Something bright kick-started inside his chest. “I shouldn't even be here.”

He watched Hannibal's eyes run over the side of his face, checking for visible damage and bruises, but Will knew his skin was barely tinged pinker than his usual complexion, if not a little swollen. It was beneath his buttoned shirt he hid the red and blue marks Hannibal had left on him. His mate found little injury and relief twitched almost invisibly between the lines of his face, as his eyes grew soft and warm, like the used, cognac leather of Alana's office chair. “You should always be here,” Hannibal spoke gently from behind the glass and Will huffed with the chafing contradiction of self-loathing and deep, open longing that rubbed together inside his tired brain.

Their eyes were locked, their fingers intertwined and time ticked away outside any frame and meaning. Connected with his mate, Will could find a space for silence inside his pure brand of chaos, where one big ball of yarn contained hundreds of loose threads all screamed for release and a destination. It was every thought and dream and desire, but in the midst of that ball of yarn was a hole. It was a place were no thread reached through, and close to Hannibal, he could find it, and breathe.

“I would love to taste that bourbon off your tongue,” Hannibal said, his eyes squinting into pointy almonds as he burned a hot, playful fire through the glass and right into Will's sternum. The Omega felt his stomach pull tight in maddening anticipation, that would remain unfulfilled. But on the outside he smiled, and the one-sided pull of his lips could almost be considered flirtatious, had Will Graham held himself capable of such a thing. “It was good bourbon,” he admitted coyly, as if no longer surprised by Hannibal's keen observation skills and outrageous senses. Hannibal copied his posture and squeezed his hand as he slid his earth-toned eyes down Will's nose. The Omega knew with certainty that if there had been no glass to separate them, Hannibal would have nuzzled him like a fond cat.

“There's an old legend about male Omega's,” Hannibal said, momentarily confusing Will with the sudden change of subject. Will blinked, and squeezed Hannibal's fingers between his own as he stared back at his pausing Alpha, whose eyes shone like wet coffee grind, pure anticipation. “Do I have to ask?”, Will challenged when Hannibal continued to warm every inch of him with his silent stare. It was a difficult step back from yesterday, where they had been connected fully in skin, and whatever reached beyond. It was, in fact, becoming close and closer to unbearable to be separated. Hannibal rose his lip into a light-hearted snarl and met Will's clutching grip, before he eased his fingers into a cherishing, cupping hold and started stroking the Omega's hand with his thumb.

“As you are aware, the male Omega carries the gene within their DNA, but rarely presents in their lifetime,” Hannibal spoke, factually, but with eyes soft as melting butter on Will's dry, rough skin. The Omega smiled back with open irony as he shrugged his shoulders inside his coat: “Well, it is the most useless gender,” he provoked, but Hannibal ignored his words as his black, widening pupils pressed full and demanding onto his. “The legend says that a male Omega only presents when his life takes a turn away from his true identity, his desires and his purpose in life.” A sharp nail ran across the inside of Will's fingers and the Omega shuddered as he watched Hannibal's eyes glow like burning coals. “See it as a built-in protection system,” he hummed, eyes running past Will's parted lips. “Presenting and bonding an Alpha will anchor the unguided, unhinged Omega back to his true form, saving him the fate of a miserable, short and unfulfilled life.”

Hannibal nearly smothered him with his hooded eyes that made Will itch with desire to reach out and touch, caress, devour. But he kept his smile, adding a flash of his fangs to the mix as he let his tongue run along the inside of his teeth. “What a hero,” he responded, dry and defiantly, and watched Hannibal's eyes dance wilder with pleasure. Will's body thrummed with the bright sense of power that seeped from one body to the next, without settling. “I find the theory suitable for our situation,” Hannibal then said, blinking almost lazily at Will before he took his hand with both his own and folded his fingers around him as if cradling a baby bird.

Will closed his eyes at the feeling of such tenderness on his singing flesh, and let the smile around his mouth pull wider with a sentiment best described as bittersweet bliss. “Without this Alpha, the unpresented Omega would have died?”, Will asked him, his eyes remaining shut as he felt Hannibal's fingers massaging patterns into the skin of his wrist. Never meaningless, he knew. Hannibal was writing symphonies and poetry and old-fashioned love letters on the veins and tendons beneath his skin. “He would have suffered,” Hannibal whispered against the glass and Will opened his eyes to come face to face again with his Alpha.

He could have laughed at the phrasing. Would have? Suffering was all he was doing, ever since he had presented for Hannibal. “Do you think I was unhappy?”, he asked Hannibal, sharp and silent. “Before all this?” He had wanted to make the question rhetorical, but he couldn't get his voice to rise and imply the mockery at the end. Hannibal pressed his thumb to the center of Will's palm before he lowered his eyes to see where they touched. “Terribly,” he said with anguish, like the thought alone was a knife between his ribs. He brought his eyes back to Will, rich like bitter chocolate. “I could feel it every day, even before you presented.” There was a red tinge around the eye white and Will felt his lungs tightening painfully as he snatched his hand back from Hannibal's fingers.

“And you believe you can change that? You can make me happy?”, he bit, trying to snarl with teeth, blunter than he remembered them. He hated these words, and he hated whatever they implied. He was going home, to his wife Molly, the woman he promised to love and cherish until death would do them part. A promise. Yes, he remembered the hollow nights and the days where his eyes barely registered his surroundings, locked inside his mind, but... “A bond will free us from this prison, Will. It will fill the void that rests inside me, shaped like you,” Hannibal said. “And the one in you, shaped like me.”Again, his determination and pride hid the agony that rested beneath his words, and Will could try to choose not to hear it, if the sound hadn't already ripped shreds inside his flesh.

“I got these,” he admitted hoarsely as he reached inside his coat to pull out the plane tickets. Hannibal stepped back as Will pressed them to the glass, allowing his mate to see the contents. “They are a gift from Alana.” He bit his teeth down when his voice quivered in his throat, and fought to keep himself steady. Not for the first time since he'd presented, he missed his broad rimmed glasses to hide himself behind. He knew he sounded lost, and it highlighted everything that was weak and unsure behind his eyes. 

Hannibal scanned his eyes over the pages with a gaze that was either calculative, or very far away. Will couldn't tell what went on behind those eye whites, that gleamed in the fluorescent light like mother of pearl. “How considerate,” he then said, carefully controlled and a soft smile on his lips, before he brought those eyes back to Will. “Monday,” Hannibal said and Will sniffled before taking back the tickets and folding them to fit into his coat. “I'm using this. These,” he said, soft but determined as he corrected singular to plural. “I'm coming back, but I will go.” His fingers trembled when he took his hand from his pocket, and Hannibal's hand reached back for him through the hole at the sight of his distress. Will allowed himself back into his Alpha's touch, and almost whimpered in relief when a rush of easy soothing burned away the thorny branches in his bloodstream.

“When will you come back?”, Hannibal urged, and Will kept his eyes on their linked fingers as he shook his head: “I don't know.” The Alpha's touch tightened around him and for a brief moment, he wondered what would happen if Hannibal would simply refuse to let him go. For a moment, he wished it. “Until it becomes unbearable to stay away?”, Hannibal asked. “Until they have to carry you in on a stretcher?” The Alpha's mouth pulled tight and his nostrils flared out, dripping grief from the seam of his composed mask. “Have you learned nothing?” The razor edged question was contradicted by a soft caress of thumb, as the earthy tones in his eyes darkened like rain falling on the dirt. Will's breath hitched as he shook his head, again and again, shifting his gaze back and forth without being able to settle. “I will come back,” he said, another promise. And he would, he knew this with absolute certainty. The circumstances as to how he would return, or what he would return to, however, remained unknown.

Hannibal watched him, but his face did not betray anything more. He remained still, silent, as revealing as a windowless wall and it reminded Will of the Hannibal he had known years before, when Will had just been Will, and Hannibal lived a double life. He swallowed hard and forced their eyes to connect, wishing to watch his mate soften and grow back into the man he understood so much better. “I will come back, on my own two feet,” he said, trying a small smile as he squeezed Hannibal's thumb. The Alpha remained still, but his pupils narrowed and widened like an adjusting lens of a camera. “Will I get to meet the family?”, he asked, the pull around his lips positively pitiless and Will closed his eyes, huffing air through his nose in a deep sigh.

“I hope to bring back something,” he replied with honesty, dragging his shoulders up to find the right words within himself as Hannibal waited, hand in his. “I hope to find clarity.” Their eyes were one as Hannibal stretched out his long, smooth neck. “Do you expect to step off that plane, look at your wife and child, and know things you do not already know now?”, he asked, reverting back to the ever-present therapist within him, and Will smiled joylessly at the question that lingered beyond. “I don't know what to expect,” he replied instead, feeling Hannibal's pulse pumping beneath his skin. Physically steadied, both, by their connection.

Will let his fingertips tap against Hannibal's palm as they stood together, letting the frustration drain through their touch as they stayed close against the glass and breathed. Minutes ticked away before Will released a long breath through his pursed lips and smiled tiredly, pushing a nail in the groove of Hannibal's pliant hand and resting his head against the glass. “Alana wanted to see if we don't have any plans to try and get you under my care,” he said, bringing his voice to a warm whisper to avoid being picked up by the microphones. The memory, the idea, the terror in her big blue eyes suddenly brought a tickling wave of weakness inside his abdomen, releasing a helpless huff of laughter behind his closed lips. Hannibal hummed as he kept his palm up and open under Will's touch, as a new light stroked his honey eyes. “That sounds lovely,” he said, his voice a low caress between the glass. There was a shared mirth through the heavy weight upon them, that Will felt and understood as his own. A secret shared between them, a code, a hidden language, like that between children in the playground.

“She seemed very stressed about that possibility,” Will smiled quietly, showing his teeth as his lips betrayed amusement that Hannibal observed with unhidden pleasure. Alana had been stressed about losing control. Alana did not know the control was never hers. “What did you tell her?”, Hannibal asked, as he bit a fang down on his bottom lip that stretched pink into a matching smile. Will shrugged and flicked his eyes to their hands, feeling a warmth that spread across his chest, and could not be blamed on that bourbon. “I told her I have no interest in having you released into my custody,” he spoke honestly, with a playful squeeze of his fingers. Hannibal scraped him gently with a nail, but his eyes stirred warm like ginger tea. “Pity,” he said, flickering his eyes openly to Will's lips and moved possibly even closer to the wall of glass. They couldn't, but Will felt the eyes, the desire, and the pull between them like no barrier existed. 

“Is there nothing that could change your mind?”, Hannibal asked with eyes that danced with pleasure, shooting up toward the overhanging microphone on the ceiling. His voice had been loud enough to be picked up by one of those, and Will knew the Alpha wished to stir that little bit of doubt back into Alana's eased mind. “Perhaps,” he said, suppressing a smile, playing the game as he rose one amused eyebrow. Playful banter. Civilized, good natured conversation. If they'd ever had it, it was a long, long time ago. But the enjoyment was like a pure, thick ray of sunlight.

Hannibal bit a fang into his lip, vaguely pretending to think it over while staring back into Will's glowing eyes. “You could keep me on a leash,” he then offered, stirring the levity between them as his pupils blew wide at the image painted inside his mind. Will knew his own vision was nothing like Hannibal's, because his brain was quick to picture his mate with a collar on his neck, living in a very pristine dog house and dining from a ceramic bowl with his name on it. He snorted, ungracefully, and Hannibal squeezed his wrist. “I would get you a muzzle,” Will replied and watched his mate smile wide around his sharp fangs. He watched them as they gleamed like pearls in the artificial light.

“How is your shoulder?”, Hannibal asked him, noticing the direction of Will's gaze, whose smile twitched under those curious eyes. “It hurts,” he said. “Like hell.”

**

Monday. Two days from today. One day after tomorrow, he was going home to Molly. Will sighed as his fingers ran past the wrinkled paper in his pocket. Already it was a mess, with soggy fingerprints and badly folded comers. He was going to call her, soon, and she would be so happy. She would vacuum, probably. Change the sheets and go to the market to get fresh fish for dinner. She would be there at the airport and she would smile and wrap her arms around him. Kiss the corner of his lips. In her eyes he would see her joy, as well as the pain he knew this had caused her. But she wouldn't say that. She would hold his hand to the car and ask him about his flight first, the motel room second, maybe the food, before she would tell him all about the dogs, Wally, dinner and perhaps an anecdote about that rude thing the lady at the fish market had said, which they would laugh about. Then, at home she would make him coffee, and at the kitchen table she would ask him about Baltimore, the hospital, Hannibal. She would start easy, slow, but she would work deeper with every evasive answer, until he would close himself off, ending the conversation. She would make him that fish dinner, serve him wine and make him laugh. And when the curtains had lifted, she would try again.

Molly was amazing. She loved him. She took his feelings into account, but also wished to know what lived inside his head. Not to pry or judge, but to support and understand him. He was impossible at times, moody, brooding, but she had promised herself to reach through that, and she often believed she did. She wished to be connected, because she didn't know what Will had hidden in the back of the shiny bookcase he presented to the world. She didn't see the rotating door and the skeletons he had hidden from view. He didn't know what to tell her anymore, because there was nothing left inside him with an outlined shape. The only thing that remained, in vibrant, shining colors, was his Alpha.

Will reached for his keys as he came to a halt before his motel door, and turned the lock before he stepped into the darkness. Inside, he flicked the switch, turned to close the door behind him and reached for the zipper of his coat. It was all done quickly, within the same instant and without hesitation or a moment's pause. And before the scent could hit him, his arm was suddenly twisted behind his back, as his head smashed against the closed motel door. The bones in his nose crunched inside his head as his already sore cheekbone and temple bounced back against the painted wood. He grunted in surprise, roared in anger and tears sprung to his eyes when the scent of stinging spices and smoke filled his lungs as he struggled against a tall, strong body that pressed against him.

“Get the fuck off of me,” Will growled, exposing his fangs as he thrashed against the tight grip on his body, feeling hot pants of breath against his neck. His back was straining against the invasion as his shoulders tried to fend off his attacker, while one foot kicked blindly against sturdy legs. A right, sharp blow against a kneecap was enough for him to push back the weight that overpowered him, as he shook his arms free and turned himself around he came face to face with the intruder, a person he had long identified by his scent. 

It was The Dragon. The other male Omega. The tall, shy man with the scarred lip, the brown hair, the evasive manners and the blue eyes that now seemed overrun by a black as deep as ink. Hannibal's suitor. Will snarled when The Dragon wasted no time to smash Will's body back into the door, reaching out and grabbing him by both wrists before burying his nose against Will's hands to inhale, deeply. “You smell like him.”

Will hissed, baring his teeth to his gums as he felt a wave of fury crashing through his helpless flesh. His arms strained inside the tight grip of The Dragon as he found new strength within his anger and managed to land the back of his heel hard against the fragile bone of the taller man's shin. He wrestled his hands free and pushed the rivaling Omega off his body. “You smell like the 18 layers of Chinese hell,” he spat back as he moved to take a powerful stance beside the bed; clenched fists by his hips, bended knees, straightened shoulders. Strong and ready for... but The Dragon closed the new distance with two strides, confident and swift, as he reached back for Will's hands and brought the fingers to his nose again. 

“Dr. Lecter,” he breathed with a low, raspy voice, and Will's nostrils flared as The Dragon lowered his lids and smiled. “I've never gotten the chance to scent him,” he said, eyes black as raven's feathers as he ran the bridge of his nose along Will's fingertips in, what almost appeared to be a content nuzzle. There was a low rumble that buzzed up from his chest as he smiled his Omega fangs bare. “He is perfect.”

Will used all his strength to try and push the man back, away from him and his hands, that scent, but he quickly came to realize he might as well have been shoving a solid rock. The Dragon was tall and lean, but in no universe had Will guessed the massive strength that hid beneath those simple clothes. “Let me go,” he choked when his arms started to tremble under the useless strain and The Dragon smiled curiously at his obvious struggle as he kept Will's fingers in his clutch. Up close, Will could see the bright blue of his eyes that shone beneath the darkness, and the scar on his lip, the deep abuse and the lunacy.

“You are not nearly as strong as I am,” The Dragon said, openly pleased as he tightened his hold on Will's hands. The bones inside the crushing grip ground together, cracking and twisting beneath the skin until close to snapping as easily as chicken bones. A wave of nausea took him over when the pain, the disgusting feeling of his insides grinding close and the heavy spices of the Omega's dominant scent blended in a hideous sensation. “I could so easily destroy you,” he spoke, as if lost in a pleasant dream as his eyelids lowered and bliss etched around his features. The hand moved the bones against each other between nerves and veins and tendons, and Will felt himself pale under his skin.

“Is that why you're here?”, he asked, weak but vicious as The Dragon took another drag from his hands before brining Will's index finger to his damaged lips. Will's whole body tightened when that mouth wrapped around his skin and tasted his mate's touch with eyes closed in pure pleasure. Will was frozen in place, eyes glued to the scene before him, until he felt the blunt teeth pressing against his flesh. Panic rose, and he quickly restarted fighting the tight grip on his wrists with hard, quick jerks of his forearms. “Stop,” he cried out when a flick of tongue ran over the inside of his knuckle, and then, the grip was gone. Will felt his heart beating, his lungs expanding, as his hands were released and The Dragon stepped back with a dark spark in his light eyes, tongue tasting his lips.

“No,” The Dragon spoke, holding his arms beside his body in an inhuman-like still stance, that of a statue. Will silently wished not to show his relief, but he certainly felt the dive of his stomach as he faced the other Omega. “I'm here to show you,” he then said, and Will felt his skin tightening like touched by ice. “Show me?”, he repeated, a grimace on his lips that kept revealing his fangs. It was his Omega in the attic, unstoppable, growling around dripping razor sharp fangs. 

Will breathed in deep through his mouth, avoiding the poisonous scent that pulsed from The Dragon in thick waves. He could not believe he hadn't smelled him that first time in the park. The wind, the thick coat, the odd angle must have been enough to hide it. There had been something shy about this stranger, then. Something undefinable. But now, it was like he was looking at a different man. That man who had whispered about The Dragon with eyes and teeth and fire in the flesh, strong and untamed. Will felt a twitch of real fear when he looked at him. This man could destroy him, there was no doubt. But Hannibal hadn't seen the threat, had never seen this man or felt his strength, smelled the death in him. Hannibal had not seen the pure, honest mania that shimmered behind his skin.

The Dragon turned his head, as if mechanically, and despite the deformed lip, Will knew he could be considered handsome. He didn't even have the crooked teeth one would expect from the bite marks on his victims. The Dragon looked at him, not a tensed muscle inside his lean form. He wasn't threatened. He wasn't impressed. “You know who I am. You know my intentions,” he spoke and Will felt the wild flinch that crossed his own face like it was done to him from the outside. “You want to bond with Hannibal,” he said between his teeth. In his head, a sharp vision clawed and chewed its way to the front of his brain, of himself and his Alpha in the prison cell, in the bathroom, in the shower, on the bed and the chair... Will breathed deep, watched the corner of The Dragon's mouth twitch and then, the images stuttered, distorted like on an old TV, before he watched himself being replaced. The vision stayed the same, but this time, it was The Dragon in the bathroom and on the bed and that fucking table. The images so similar the difference was hardly noticeable. Interchangeable. Will was not there. Will was at home.

He watched the other Omega's eyes tighten and became aware of the open snarl on his own face and the crooked fingers on his hands. But the Dragon wasn't worried about Will. “Dr. Lecter is the perfect candidate to fuel the becoming of The Great Red Dragon,” he explained calmly and Will blinked, flexed his fingers and straightened his back. “I'm not sure I understand any of that,” he replied, sliding in as much mockery as he dared, but The Dragon already turned to the bed, where Will now noticed a black briefcase. He opened it, not even keeping an eye out for the other Omega as he clicked the lock and took out a magazine. The thin paper was worn from touch, and cracks had appeared on the outer side of the print. But The Dragon opened it to the desired page with one flick of his finger, and presented it to Will without handing it to him.

It was a picture of a watercolor painting. The back of a magnificent beast, winged and horned and tailed and bulging with strength. Beneath him, in gold, was a woman looking up at him in what seemed to be glorious adoration. “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, by William Blake,” Will read out loud, flashing his eyes back to the other man, who was now standing closer than he cared for.

“Do you feel it?”, The Dragon purred in that hellish voice and Will swallowed deeply when a shiver ran from his neck to the back of his knees. “Feel it?”, he asked, hearing his own voice pitch higher. The Dragon tracked one finger over the beast's tail. “You are an Omega. I have wondered if you would feel what I feel. If you see it for what it is,” The Dragon said, voice low and soft but eyes leering, black like death. “I-It's a painting,” Will said, feeling the confused panic rising at the dangerous glow that covered the other Omega from head to toe. Dark, empty insanity. 

The Dragon eyed him for a full minute, silent and dark and reeking of biting menthol before he brought the magazine back to his chest to close the page. “Good,” he then said. “If you had felt it too, I would have had no choice but to stop you.” The words were spoken softly, but Will felt his eyes widen and his jaw weaken at the cold, bloodless eyes of The Dragon. “I do not want to destroy you, it is not the way,” he continued, and Will swallowed hard under the haunting stare as he remembered Hannibal's words. Killing another Omega was not considered 'honorable'. He had huffed at the sentiment then, but oh was he grateful for it now. 

The magazine was stored back into the briefcase with much care before the man turned back to him with eyes that had returned to blue. “Through this image, The Dragon came to me.” he said, sitting himself down on the mattress with hands folded in his lap as Will stayed upright beside the door. “This was the moment I presented Omega.” 

Will blinked, more times than he could count, as his lips closed and opened under the strain of his bewilderment. “You presented for a painting?”, he asked, openly stunned as he folded his arms across his chest. The Dragon's nostrils twitched and Will almost expected puffs of smoke to rise from the inside. “For The Great Red Dragon,” he corrected quietly, but Will heard the warning below his tongue. For The Great Red Dragon. He presented Omega for a piece of paper, a picture in a magazine, and Will realized it had manifested inside his mind as something tangible and real. Real enough for his DNA to believe it was something he could actually have...

“He is your Alpha?”, Will asked, pushing nails into his own upper arms as he tried to keep himself steady. “He is,” The Dragon answered with a nod and a spark of proud pleasure at his own affirmation. Will frowned, twisting his head around the words as he tried to puzzle a picture from the few pieces he was given. “So... not Hannibal?”, he finally blurted out, wondering if Hannibal had misunderstood his stalker's intentions. But that was unlikely enough for Will to feel a deep sense of unease, instead of the possible relief.

“Dr. Lecter has the life and strength to fuel my Alpha,” The Dragon spoke almost dreamily now and again Will paused, blinked, breathed. “But aren't you becoming The Dragon?”, he then asked, growing more and more confused with every answer. He took a step towards the bed, but when The Dragon rose to his feet, he was quick to claim back his old space. “The Omega is inside of me, but so is The Dragon,” the man said, growing a head of pure, glowing satisfaction as he preached with all his passion. “All I have to do is provide his life force.”

“Through a bond with Hannibal?”, Will asked through clenched teeth, trying to keep down the offensive noises from his Omega. “And killing innocent families?” Will took a step sideways, closer to the bed and away from the door. The Dragon huffed again, narrowed his eyes that flashed back to black as he watched Will shuffling sideways. “I am not killing them,” he said with sharp determination. “I'm changing them.” Will watched his shoulders flex under his shirt as The Dragon pressed his lips together. “It is how I become.” Then, his lips curved into a crooked smile that brought out the deformation of his lip. He sized Will up with an open stare. “My bonding with Dr. Lecter will complete the transition.”

Fuck that, is what he wanted to say, had he dared. Instead, he tried to keep his lips from curling as he asked him; “Why Hannibal?” The Dragon's smile softened and Will couldn't help but release a low growl from his throat. It wasn't so much that he, Will, belonged to Hannibal. But he knew damn well that Hannibal was not and never would belong to this lunatic. Oh no. He had thought them a perfect match before, but now he knew that couldn't be further from the truth. This man possessed no sense, no reality, no insight. Where he and Hannibal were more than human, this stranger was nothing but a savage beast.

“I've been a great admirer of Dr. Lecter's, even before he was known as the Chesapeake Ripper,” The Dragon said, stretching his neck, a challenging glow in his eyes. “I collected every article and wrote him many letters over the years.” Will pictured him in a little bedroom, cutting articles out of newspapers and flinched. “When I presented Omega, I knew there was only one Alpha that could fulfill my desire to find The Dragon within myself. He alone would understand.” Will breathed in deep and pressed his teeth together. Hannibal would understand. Hannibal understood madness, he was deeply fascinated by it, intensely passionate about it, but in no way was he, himself, mad. Hannibal had, ironically enough, an insane amount of clarity.

“I'd wished to free him, but of course I had not foreseen your sudden connection with him,” The Dragon added, and Will's lips twitched, upwards this time. “No one had,” he replied, rather dry, as he kept his eyes tight. The man stepped closer, eyes blue with a dangerous tremor beneath, like wrinkles on still water, as something came up from beneath the surface. “Together, we can bring him back into the world,” The Dragon spoke with a dreamlike pining as Will tried to shuffle back, hitting the windowsill with his lower back. That scent was like Tiger balm to his eyes and the closer they got, the more tears he would have to blink back. The Dragon came to halt before Will, with eyes that saw him, but did not seem limited to the room alone. “You, from the inside of the prison, and me on the outside.”

Will kept his eyes sharp and straight on the taller man as he pressed his lips together. “After that, it is every man for himself.” Will heard his own heart beating so loudly, he was almost as ashamed as he was afraid. “I'm not helping you,” he said without stuttering as a drop of sweat rolled off his temple. “If Hannibal wants out, he would be out. He doesn't need either one of us for that.” He watched the Dragon stare back at him without motion. There was silence, as they stood near, face to face, challenging and breathing the other until Will felt his throat swelling from the heat. “I'm leaving in two days,” he said, wanting nothing more than for this to end, and for him to leave. It would take him hours to get rid of the stench.

“To your wife and child?”, The Dragon asked, the scar of his lip pulled as he showed a bit of sharp fangs. Longer, sharper than Will's. His heart stuttered, his breathing stopped, and his eyes widened at the words as The Dragon observed him like a toad would a fly, ready to catch him with that sticky tongue. Will couldn't speak as he watched The Dragon step back, turning towards the briefcase on the bed. He knew about his life. He knew about his family. “You will not help free Dr. Lecter?”, he asked as Will pressed his back against the windowsill, holding the ridge with his hands behind his back. “No,” he shook his head as The Dragon walked from the bed, near the door.

“You have no intention of bonding with him?”, The Dragon asked, his face stoic, his lips closed, his eyes dark clouds full of disaster. He stared him down, but Will pushed his chin out as he looked at the other Omega. He got that question a lot, but the answer was a children's drawing full of endless lines and scribbles. “I know he will not bond with you,” he said instead, feeling bold as he glared back at the tall, dark, strong stranger. The victory didn't last.

A flash of brown hair, pale skin, black eyes and suddenly tight, strong fingers closed around Will's throat. And his grip was crushing and burning until his eyes teared and his vision blurred. This hold was one that could destroy his windpipe, break his neck, hold until all the life had left his body. He clawed at the hand, at the grip, but it was no use as he felt his feet lifted from the floor and his back pressed against the window. “He will bond with me,” the low, fiery sharp growl shook against his ear as he heard himself making pitiful choking noises. “He cannot resist the power of The Dragon. The moment we meet, face to face, Lecter will bond with me.” Blue and black took over his vision and Will was certain he was about to lose consciousness, feeling light in his head and heavy in his feet, until the hand loosened around his skin and dropped him to the floor.

He wheezed, grabbing at his sore throat that throbbed with pain and swelling as he watched the door open from the corner of his eyes, and heard it fall shut into the silence. He sat on the floor as he tried to catch his breath while blood pumped back into the narrowed veins of his brain. Tears were on his cheeks and his vision swam in dizzy color as he stroked his throat, and panted his relief trough open lips. He sat there for minutes, long after his breathing had returned to normal, before he found the strength to drag himself up and collapse on the mattress. “Good luck with that,” he mumbled hoarsely against his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the amazing artwork the so super awesome [Erodingthebluff](http://erodingthebluff.tumblr.com/) made for this fic! She is such a huge support to me and I am so extremely honored that she made this! The wolves! It's perfect <3  
> I also realized I completely forgot to link (cause I did not know how to link *shamefull blush*) to this wonderful one-shot written by TempestandTeacup: [In the Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12548156) , based on this story. I am so sorry for the late shoutout, but check it out, it is so so beautiful and she has amazing talent!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! My husband always proof reads my work for me (yes, the smut too....I'm not saying it's never awkward :-P), and this chapter he was like: "Oh come on, you are so mean to Will." Personally I think Will is stronger than ever in this chapter, so I'm curious what you guys think! All my thanks and all my love!!


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The words were wrong. Spoken softly, warm and with the hint of pleasant secrecy. Will watched the man, saw his arrogance, his eagerness and greed and felt his stomach twist. “You disgusting little man,” he said, bringing his voice down to a hum as he smiled dangerously past his teeth and shook his head in amazed astonishment. Chilton's expression didn't change, but again, he held up his palms in a peace offer that Will wished to slice from his wrists. “I am merely saying that the dynamic between the two of you is one for the books,” the man explained, no threat present in his voice as he pressed his lips into that sickening smile.

“Ugh.” He never buttoned up. Not all the way. There were always those 'casually' popped buttons from the top: one for business, two for downtime, three if he was feeling adventurous. But today, Will hooked two fingers behind the board of his done-up collar and felt the tight space it left around his throat, flexing his neck uncomfortably inside the stiff fabric. It would have to do. He pushed his hair from his eyes with both hands, still wet from the tap, and wrinkled his nose at the sight of his reflection. The worst of the discoloration was hidden, but there was still a red glow visible on the uncovered skin of his throat.

He had hideous bruises where The Dragon had pushed his fingertips against his windpipe, and the skin was a colorful mess of blue and purple prints, covering the previous, yellowing bruises Hannibal had left on him days before. It was swollen, throbbing with damage to the underlying, ruptured veins, but the wild pattern, resembling abstract watercolor art, wasn't even the worst of it. Will chuckled humorlessly as he ran a blunt nail beneath his itching jawline and flinched at the stinging burn it left in its wake. His skin seemed to have had some sort of allergic reaction to The Dragon's touch, causing both his hands and his throat to be covered in a painful, fiery red rash. 

The burning itch had presented itself less than twenty minutes after The Dragon had left his room, starting with heated skin, inflammation, before biting little bumps had risen up from beneath his flesh. Around his Adam's apple, down his collar bone, on the inside of his wrist and between the knuckles of his fingers. After opening the window and door to his room and hanging the bedsheets and his clothes from the windowsill to air them out, he had held the irritated skin under the streaming cold water of the shower for close to an hour. By then, his skin had turned a sick purple blue from the freezing cold and the constant draft that streamed in from the dreary outside. At this point, he had locked himself in, folded himself in the bedsheets on the mattress and closed his eyes as he fought against his shaking shoulders and clattering teeth. But the burning itch, the pain, the adrenaline and the memories had made it impossible for him to relax, to rest, to fall asleep. 

Morning had come after that long, dark night of nothing – and now Will watched himself in the bathroom mirror, and felt odd in his done-up shirt. As vibrant as he had looked yesterday, so sickly pale and hollowed out did he look today. His shoulders were drawn up, exhaustion visible on his face and the rash on his skin brought him right back to wounded, suffering animal. He sighed, lost in all this pointlessness, and dried his hands on the already damp towel beside the sink as he tried to ignore the thrumming soreness of the tender, swollen flesh beneath his clothes.

Will pushed himself away from the sink and moved into the bedroom to look for his shoes. He needed some space. Some air. There was nothing left for him to do here, and he hoped the cool breeze would relieve the burn on his skin, as well as the tired haze he carried with him like an unshakable swarm of bees. His hand patted the back pockets of his jeans in search for his wallet as his eyes scanned the desk for his keys. He wanted nothing more now than to get away from these scents and reflections and walls that limited the room inside his drowning mind. 

There was more and more for him to consider, to puzzle and piece together, and to fit into one, narrow frame. Hannibal, Molly, The Dragon, his Omega. They swarmed together inside his head like a colony of woodlice beneath the bricks, unplaced and without purpose, and the feeling made him restless, anxious, pushing neurotic. There was too much of them and not enough room to lay them out, and the one thing to consider now, was what he wished the picture to show when he was done puzzling. 

Will grabbed his coat from the bed and fished his cellphone from beneath a pile of his dirty clothes before he reached for the door handle and took a deep, calming breath. He had some time left, just for him, just today. After his confrontation with The Dragon, his upcoming departure from Hannibal and his return to Molly, all he wished for now was silence in his chaotic mind. Space to lay out his mind and his heart, and understand what it would show him. 

But as the door swung open under the weight of his hand, he was surprised to come face to face with an unexpected visitor. “Will Graham, Good afternoon,” were the words that greeted him, and even stunned, Will had to suppress an open flinch at the sight of Doctor Frederick Chilton.

Will blinked at the sight before him. It was a long, long time since he had last seen this man, and the last time he remembered even longer. Their last conversation in the hospital had been overshadowed by the face of Abigail. The other times... Chilton's presence had never made it past anything but a foot note in the file cabinet inside his mind. Either a nuisance, or a tool. The only vivid memory he could dig out of the muddy clay was the man on his porch, covered in blood, asking to use his shower. 

Will watched the now pristine, expensive gray suit, the black, polished shoes, the one invasive eye, and the skillfully hidden scars on the side of his face. “Doctor Chilton,” he said with a quick shake of his head, the open door firmly in his hand. No, not now. He had wanted silence. He had wanted... “What are you doing here?” The shocked aversion was barely concealed in his blunt words, but Chilton's expression of fiery curiosity, hidden behind arrogant politeness, didn't move an inch. The man grinned as he eyed the coat on Will's arm and the keys in his hand. “I see I'm lucky to catch you”, he gestured and Will's eyes widened when the man reached out for his hand to shake, touching his hot, raw flesh that pulsed swollen around the narrow bones. He quickly pulled his hand back when Frederick frowned and looked down at where their fingers met, undoubtedly feeling the inflamed, throbbing skin beneath his own, but he painted the smile back around his mouth without missing a beat when Will hid both his hands beneath the coat over his arm.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Chilton light-heartedly avoided answering, stretching his lips into that familiar businessman smile as he gestured casually around himself. “I heard you were staying here, and I was simply curious to see how you are.” Will's lips tightened at the kind words, disconcerted with the idea of someone spilling the address of his motel room to this man, with whom his relationship could never have been called in any way 'friendly'. He backed up when Frederick stepped closer, moving in on him with green eyes sparkling like those of a spoiled, house-trained parakeet. “May I come in?”, he asked, for form alone as he brought his shiny foot over the threshold. Before Will could find the breath for an answer, his shoulder brushed that gray suit, and Chilton had moved past him into his room. “I...” Will struggled with empty words inside his throat as the Doctor pushed past him in the narrow doorway, and up close, Will could see older, paler skin than he remembered, sagging a little loose around the damaged half of his face. He could also see the manic enthusiasm that had nothing to do with visiting an old patient and everything with outrageous self-enrichment. Chilton's notorious self-appointed entitlement. 

Everything registered a second too late, and Will's head twitched as he followed Chilton inside with wide, bewildered eyes. “So, how are you holding up?”, the man asked as he took in his surroundings with much enjoyment, openly feasting on every detail. The pile of clothes by the bathroom door, the unmade bed stained with sweat, the drawn curtains, the empty beer cans in the trash. Will moved his coat to his forearm as he turned himself back into the room. Flustered and uneasy, the blood drew up past his throat and stung the inflamed flesh cruelly beneath his damaged skin, making him pull at the tight collar in search for relief as he felt salty sweat forming and biting beneath the fabric of his clothes.

Chilton's eyes flashed to Will's now exposed hands, red and raw, like he had undoubtedly felt them to be. “Allergies?”, he asked greedily concerned, his voice almost hushed and his lips crooked, as if adding a side note in an ongoing conversion. Will quickly folded his arms, wondering how much of the rash now sneaked from under his shirt when Frederick's eyes ran openly up his throat. He shook his head dismissively, a flinch around his narrowed eyes as he pursed his lips and tilted his head. “How am I holding up?”, he repeated the casual, over-familiar phrase as he hunched his shoulders in the hope it would drag up his collar and hide the inflamed skin.

Chilton smiled perfectly even, despite his expertly hidden prosthetic, and one green eye sparkled like a polished gem. “I've been told you have a very intense week behind you.” The friendly nod and gentle blink failed to hide the keenness that brewed behind the skin with a smoky, toxic fume and Will sucked in his bottom lip between sharp teeth. “By?”, he inquired stiffly as his toes curled inside his shoes. Had he been so inclined, he would have offered the man a chair and a cup of coffee, just for the sake of good manners. But he had outgrown those manners, a little more with every one of his overstepped boundaries.

“Alana Bloom,” Chilton waved, smug and pleased, alert like a seagull on a busy boulevard. “Watercooler talk.” Will almost smiled at the words as he looked at the polished, self-righteous man across from him. A transparent attempt to flash the name cards in his rolodex. Not a minute in, but it was already clear as the water of his stream. The contrast between them was stark, and the neat, alert enthusiasm of the Doctor made Will look the part of the scruffy, hazy, unshaved and wary haired mental patient once more. Had Will been anyone else, he would not have seen past the superficial first layer presenting Chilton's shining confidence and hearty interest, and move in deeper for the shimmering motive. But Will remembered Frederick Chilton's carefully peeled layers from many years back. He came here, looking like this, behaving like this, expecting to dazzle and overpower the weak, wounded Omega. He wanted something. 

“You don't work there,” Will challenged with a cocked brow, taking a step closer to the shorter man who remained firm in his spot beside the bed and tilted his head. “She regularly calls on me for guidance and advice,” Chilton explained patiently as he ran a finger over the edge of Will's mattress. “I've been the head of that facility for many years, as you know, and she...” Chilton pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes in a thoughtful gesture of compassion. “Well, she has her insecurities.” Will huffed quietly through his nose and sucked his lips against his teeth when Chilton dared to take a step towards him. “And most of them regard Doctor Hannibal Lecter.” 

That was a test. Will felt the scrutinizing eyes when that name was dropped, right before Frederick took a gliding step back to observe his reaction. Pupils fixated sharply on his features, and Will fought to keep his skin passive and smooth in its proper place. He stared back at the man with nothing but blank boredom before Frederick broke the connection, wrung his hands together and smiled. “My personal relationship with Doctor Lecter is rather tumultuous,” he continued, that smile growing somewhat sour within the confession. “I did some writing about him, he did some writing about me... enfin, I'm sure you have heard.” Another casual wave of his hand to emphasize how hotly demanded he thought that information to be, as he threw a second glance over his shoulder towards the pile of dirty clothes by the bathroom door. 

Will silently begged for his underwear to be hidden from view, knowing his slick stained the fabric rather visibly. “It didn't come up,” he said in return and Chilton turned his head back, his everlasting smile now tightened with a hint of offense. “Well,” he said, tilting his head to look down his sturdy nose. “I'm sure you had other things to focus on.” His nostrils twitched and his lips pulled challengingly around his lips as his green eyes lit up with a starting fire. Will felt his stomach clenching hard and cold at the hinted layer that shone beneath the words, and he suddenly wondered just how much Chilton had been informed by the Hospital. He watched the man with targeting eyes as hot blood bubbled up from his toes to the back of his skull. “I must say, you look a little worse for wear,” Chilton continued as he stepped closer to the desk and ran his eyes intimately over Will's dry, itchy skin and sunken eyes that the terrible night had brought back to his face. 

Will stayed passive in his reply, robotic, a reflex, words he didn't bother to think about anymore. “I'm fine,” he said and Chilton's eyes lowered to his shoes with a pleasant hum in his throat. “Yes, well, I've spoken with Doctor Hammings,” he said, and Will's lip started pushing up the neat row of his teeth. He was lying. He had no medical authority left in that building. Chilton was lying. “I've come to understand you and Hannibal are quite the extraordinary pairing,” he said, bringing his lips in tightly to express polite interest and concern. He knew everything. “He told me it is physically painful for you to be separated from your mate.” The curious tone poked hot from beneath the dark pupils and Will's lips curled fully over his teeth with a growl that pushed from his throat. 

His Omega hunched his back at the uttered word. His mate. His mate. His. Chilton had nothing... no right to even... no fucking... 

Chilton's eyes widened, recognizing the warning as he held up his hands, palms up, in innocence. “I just wanted to say I wasn't at all surprised when you presented Omega,” he said, showing his own teeth in an uneasy grin that he most likely considered friendly. “Or that it was for Doctor Lecter.” Will suppressed a snarl at his Alpha's name. “You two always had that strange connection, that intensity between you,” Chilton rattled on, pride coloring his voice warm, convinced and self-affirmed of his gift in human insight. “I always knew you were destined, somehow.” 

The intense stare and the self-pleasuring ego stroking before him made Will huff a chuckle, weak with astonishment over the absurd suggestion as his lips stretched wide. “Did you?”, he then asked, mockery open in his voice as he straightened his shoulders. “And when was that? When he framed me for murder or when he stuck a knife inside my gut?” Now it was Chilton who huffed at the slicing tone as he shrugged his shoulders and moved himself around Will, coming to stand before the television screen.

“I did say it was a strange connection,” he waved away Will's cynicism. “Not your common fairy tale.” Will dragged up his nose at the brief flash of a smirk as Chilton touched the top of his television screen before inspecting his finger for dust. “My point being...”, he said, rubbing his fingertips together, looking down his nose. Of course there was dust. “You have both risen to a level of animalistic, intimate savagery.” The green eyes were almost clouded as he spoke, but the sharp glint beneath was never gone from the dreamy haze. “It is extraordinary. Unique.” He was the magpie before the open jewelry box, beak watering and claws hooked into the windowsill. Chilton slid his hands in the coat of his jacket as he leaned against the desk. “It is a most enthralling thing to witness.”

And Will didn't move, didn't blink, but inside, the words were pulled apart, pressed together, torn down, closely examined beneath the sharpest lens as his eyes narrowed, his lips dropped in a grimace, his fingers curled inside his palm. “Witness?”, he repeated. “What exactly did you witness, Frederick?” He watched his own dark brow come into his vision as he felt a twitch of heavy, sizzling uneasiness rumble from inside his belly. That glint in Chilton's eyes, those teeth behind that sharp smile... he had something to trade. Something to use. Leverage. Chilton took his hands from his pocket and placed them beside him on the desk, leaning himself back in a posture that did not match the conversation. “The fire in you, mister Graham.”

The words were wrong. Spoken softly, warm and with the hint of pleasant secrecy. Will watched the man, saw his arrogance, his eagerness and greed and felt his stomach twist. “You disgusting little man,” he said, bringing his voice down to a hum as he smiled dangerously past his teeth and shook his head in amazed astonishment. Chilton's expression didn't change, but again, he held up his palms in a peace offer that Will wished to slice from his wrists. “I am merely saying that the dynamic between the two of you is one for the books,” the man explained, no threat present in his voice as he pressed his lips into that sickening smile.

Will realized it, watching him like this. Chilton did not see danger in Will Graham. Hannibal, he feared. But locked up so neatly behind glass walls, there was nothing to stop him. Will was weak. Will was an Omega. Will could so easily be manipulated. Acid green like poison bubbled up from between his shoulder blades and spread through his veins with a biting heat. Will had had enough. The Dragon had laughed at him. Alana had pitied him. Jack had overpowered him. And now, Frederick Chilton, the fucking village idiot, came here to extort him, use him for his own newfound hobby, because he was _one for the books._

“And you want to write those books,” Will replied aloof as he straightened his shoulders and clenched his hands around his own upper arms. “Tastefully, or not so much, depending how much insight I am willing to provide.” He smiled, almost kindly, if not for the wild glint of blue and green that illuminated his eyes as he stepped closer to the Doctor. Chilton laughed a light chuckle, a lopsided smile on his lips but with eyes that remained untouched by the gesture. “All in good time, Mr. Graham,” he said, like a man trying to sooth an unpredictable animal. “Like I said, I am here to see how you are faring,” Chilton pushed himself off of the desk and his hands found their way back into his pockets. 

“You are an old patient of mine and I...” But Will followed those hands, and watched fingers moving beneath the fabric of the gray jacket. “And you are not at all wired, by any chance?”, he inquired, pleasantly but sharp as he watched Chilton's eyes widen for the briefest second before he brought his face back to shocked surprise. “Certainly not,” he spoke, with feet that suddenly pointed to the still open door. “No recording device?”, Will asked, eyebrows up and shaking his head in question as Chilton's cheeks started to color pink. “Mr. Graham, I understand your need for suspicion, but...”, he spoke in that sickening, determined tone and Will felt all patience and pretend draining from his body at the mechanic click of a button he heard coming from Chilton's pocket. 

In one strong, fluent movement that seemed quite impossible for a man looking as drained as he did, Will had moved in and pushed a hand inside Chilton's pocket, fishing out a small tape recorder with his swollen hand. “That is not... I...” the Doctor was quick to stutter as he tried to reach back for the device, but Will kept him at arm-length, clicking it open and shaking the little tape into his palm. A moment later, and he crushed it to pieces between his fingers with strength he wasn't aware he had.

“Leave, Frederick,” he said, handing him back the empty recorder. “I have nothing to say to you.” A growl was present in his chest as he stepped past the man and swung the door further open to gesture to the world on the other side. Frederick's smile had disappeared and his eyes widened as he pushed his recorder back into his pocket. “Will, this is...”, he started, back to the scolding school teacher, but Will's lips curled up with a snarl that sent Chilton two quick steps closer to the door. “Leave,” he repeated and Chilton's nostrils flared in defeated anger as he stepped over the threshold, reaching into his inner pocket.

“I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Graham,” he spoke tightly, back to business, as he handed Will a card with two of his stubby fingers. “Feel free to look me up, if you change your mind,” Chilton said, and Will pushed his lips into a humorless smirk, pushing Frederick back one step with a light poke of a finger against his sternum. “I only wish to understand and share your story, in a way that you...” Chilton continued, and for a short moment Will was strongly reminded of Freddy Lounds, right before he threw the door closed in his face.

“Christ,” he stayed there, behind the door, and minutes passed before he heard the man get into his car and drive off. He stood frozen in spot, leaning his forehead against the door post with a long, hard sigh. “When will it end?” 

Will knew just why the man had come here. He wanted page fillers for his future best seller. Preferably from the horse's mouth, since that would increase the value and credibility of the story quite considerably. Will had feared Doctor Hammings to be the one after that idea, but he had not been aware of the other vultures that circled the exceptional corpse. And Frederick Chilton, oh he had leverage. He knew the prison, the people, surely had one puppet string on Alana, and he had, most likely, seen Will and Hannibal in compromising situations. Something he could choose to write about in exposing, uncomfortable detail, should Will choose not to cooperate. He had the sources and the material for blackmail, and that was why Will knew that Chilton knew his business card would very likely be used after a long, hard think from the Omega.

He sat in silence as he looked down at the neat print on the expensive card, before taking out his wallet and folding it inside. 

**

He did go for that walk, twenty minutes after Chilton had left. And the fresh air did feel good against his rough skin. The gentle breeze did feel cool against his heated brain. He bought lunch, found an empty park bench and enjoyed a few rays of watery sunlight as he ate his chicken sandwich without tasting the bland meat, or the soggy lettuce. And then he called Molly. 

She picked up, and he told her. He told her about the tickets and the plane and the flight home. And she was happy. She was so happy she cried. She didn't tell him that. She tried to hide the sniffle and the thick throat, but he heard it. And it was enough to make him feel that little bit more worthless. 

She had been through hell, all by herself, not for the first time in her unfortunate life. And now he was coming home. He had disrupted their lives, and they had both suffered, but soon his plane would land and everything would go back to the way it had been. 

Will swallowed away the tight shiver he felt brushing his spine as they said their goodbyes, and he pressed her away. She didn't know yet that there was no point of return to what once was. He didn't know what it meant just yet, for them, but there was no denying anymore that there was no life for him without Hannibal. There would be visits, heats, pain and longing, and in all fairness, it would be quite a radical change to add this to his relationship with Molly. How could he ask of her...? 

He jerked when his phone beeped with an incoming message and saw Alana's name flash up on the screen. It was short and simple, but it sent his heart flying to his throat. His eyes scanned the words several times over before he put his phone back inside his pocket. 

_Just got an update from the airport. Your flight has been advanced to 10:00 A.M. tomorrow morning. Check in time is 8:00 A.M. I'll send someone by to pick you up at 7:00 A.M._

No. No. Will sat on the bench, feeling his breathing pick up higher in his chest as he wrung his hands together. Tomorrow morning. He was supposed to take the red-eye. Tomorrow morning at 7:00, that was... He checked his watch with a twist of his wrist. He had been sitting here for a while, and now it was 3 in the afternoon. 16 hours. 16 hours left, that wasn't enough. He quickly gathered the remains of his lunch to dump it in the trashcan beside him. He had so much to do. He needed to pack his things and... and...

Will stood beside the bench, hands restless on his clothes as he watched the world in complete, sudden bewilderment. What was there to do, still? Where did he need to go? There was something screaming inside of him, and it wasn't his Omega. No, the beast was locked in the attic and refused to regard him ever since his phone call with Molly. It wasn't the animal, but something furious clawed at him, something human, begging for his attention. He didn't have much time, he didn't....

Who knew when he was going to see him again. 

Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.

“Will Graham for Hannibal Lecter,” he said into the phone against his ear after pressing the first button of his speed-dial. His feet started to walk him further into the park, away from the bench, across the busy street.

“Hello, Will,” came the soothing tones, clear as a single note from a harp's string, yet with an aura of distortion like that of a poorly closed valve on a bicycle tire. It felt like gentle fingers came within his chest, massaging his heart back to life. “Hi,” he said in return, hearing himself out of breath as he watched the duck pond coming into view ahead of him. “Where are you?”, Hannibal asked, a tremor of concern present behind his vocal cords and Will could envision him so perfectly in his mind's eye. The frown wrinkling the skin of his face, the narrow eyes, bourbon smooth but sharp, and the parted lips that curled around his words with obscene dedication and understanding.

“I'm coming to see you,” Will said, picking up his pace even further as he turned his body to slip between and pass two strolling seniors who blocked the sidewalk. Hannibal breathed into his ear. “To say goodbye,” he said on the other end and Will sucked his tongue to the roof of his mouth. There was no need to ask. “I'm leaving tomorrow morning,” he said, feeling his stomach twist in the wake of his words.

“Then come,” Hannibal said, a stroke of warmth against Will's throat as the Alpha's voice poured over him like hot honey. Caressing, yet painful. “Yes,” he breathed, walking two steps faster to avoid colliding with an oncoming bicycle. “Yes.” 

He walked and breathed and sped up as much as he could without breaking into an actual run. And he didn't hang up. He kept the phone by his ear and felt the low hum of his Alpha cure the black spots that danced inside his chest like living mold. Hannibal waited for him, silently, without breaking the connection between them. He just waited, and Will almost smiled at the odd sensation of being out in the open, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was in the shower yesterday thinking of all the things I still want to do with the story and I was counting chapters....well, I came close to 50 XD! Ohhhh! Well, I'm not cutting anything out so I hope you guys are willing to stick with me for a little while longer! Don't worry, I'm not going to dive into a million subplots with many side characters and side relationships or anything (or...sorry, if you like that sort of thing :-P) Nothing that doesn't serve the Hannigram! No scenes where Will teaches Wally how to icefish, talks about his dead dad and drowns in a mighty, ice cold guilt trip, or where Will wants to explore his murder urges for Hannibal and tries to kill a barmaid but then finds out she is really cool and they start murdering together and free Hannibal from prison and they all become besties for life living in a huge mansion where she does the cleaning and cooking and dog walking with a fond smile on her face while listening to Hannibal and Will having epic sex in every room of the house! Oh, and she looks exactely like me! 
> 
> ....So no.....definitely none of that! :-P  
> Love you guys!


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you doing?”, he stuttered, raising his head again to get a proper look at his own finger between those pink lips, and with a flash of his memory, he thought back of the last time someone had brought his fingers to their mouth. “Are you tasting him?” A sudden but hot flash of envious anger burst up as he launched himself upwards and yanked back his hand, cradling it against his chest as his nostrils flared and his eyes twitched with wild fury. If he was now being used as a vessel for a sick courtship between...

There was a warm hand stroking the curls from his face as his eyes drifted open and closed under the gentle caressing. Fingers were laced with his own, clutched to his chest, and his head was rested on the warm legs of his Alpha's lap. “Sleep,” a husk voice hummed near his ear, but Will shook his head against the firm thighs. “No,” he murmured, willing himself to keep his eyes open, his mind clear and sharp. He wasn't going to sleep. If he slept now, he wouldn't wake until it was already time for him to leave. He wasn't quite ready for that.

The fingers massaged against his skull and carded through his hair, cherishing him like a beloved pet, or a sick child. But in the wake of the previous events, Will reveled in the feeling of being held and cared for. He surrendered to the sensation of being touched, rather than pushed or pulled, or choked within an inch of his life. He needed this. And he needed it now more than ever.

The silence lingered, blissfully, as Will lay on the bed with his head in Hannibal's lap. His Alpha was propped up against the wall, the position he had taken as soon as he was unchained. He had seen the vulnerability in his Omega's eyes, the powerlessness that sucked him in like quicksand. He had seen the cranking anger, the sour spite, the fear spreading like vermin, and he hadn't even needed to beckon his mate as he sat himself down and folded his arms around Will's exhausted, willing frame without a word wasted.

It was like that for a long time. Will didn't sleep, but his eyes were closed under the warm touch, the healing scent, the soothing presence. The pain, the burn, the defenseless anger faded to the back of his mind as the tension left his aching muscles, allowing him to rest. He forcefully kept his mind cleared whenever an unwanted thought crept up inside the corners, and let himself sink into the golden glow that seemed to reside permanently beneath his Alpha's skin. It would be all the more difficult in his own bed, tomorrow, he knew, but right now he was selfish and hurt and so, so tired. Abused by the world. And nothing else would fix it. Here, he was filled to the brim with nothing but belonging, and let himself be just that. 

A nose pressed to his ear, tracing the shell with the warm tip. “Return to me within a week,” Hannibal spoke against him, pushing the bridge of his nose behind Will's ear with a deep inhale. Will knew what he would smell on him, but he had yet to comment. “Promise me.” The urging words were soft and warm like a lamb's coat, but Will felt the trickle of thorns it brought along his temple and pressed one hand to his face.

“No,” he murmured miserably against his still swollen skin as Hannibal continued to stroke his hair, along his forehead and back to where his skull ended in the spine. Will breathed and smelled the spices on his fingers, before lowering them away from his face and closing his eyes again. He didn't want to think, or promise, or plan. He wanted now. Just now.

“You are already so tired,” Hannibal sighed ruefully into their silent space, not aimed at anyone in particular. He was worried, and the thought brought a squeeze to Will's heart that was warm and tight. Too tight. “You know why I'm returning to Molly,” he spoke hoarsely against the mattress, squeezing the fingers between his own in frustration. “Don't you?”

“Because you are a stubborn boy,” Hannibal answered him fondly, briefly tightening his fingers in Will's curls before he soothed the strained skin with apologetic caresses. It was clear evidence of the tension that was buried beneath the gentle, golden eyes. Will flinched before turning his head up, meeting Hannibal's gaze and watched the dull shimmer stir in the thick bourbon. “No, answer me,” Will demanded, soft but rigid, and felt his bottom lip twitch against his teeth. “Answer me like you know I want you to answer me.”

Hannibal's hand stopped stroking for a mere, lost second before he smiled and showed a sliver of pointed fangs. “Molly Foster saved your life,” he said, and Will turned his body until he lay fully on his back, staring up at the stars in Hannibal's galactic eyes. “She took you in when you had nothing to offer in return. Ruined and lost inside yourself.” Hannibal closed his eyes as he smiled, and when he opened them, the stars had dulled into dirt. “Because of your time with me.” 

Will breathed unsteadily through his teeth as he looked back at his mate and remembered. Back then, Hannibal had woken up something irreversible but incomplete in him. In the time they had been together, he had gone from a shape with no outline, to a man with one arm, and one leg. Immobile, unfit to achieve the things his mind screamed him destined for. Hannibal had woken the Omega, but Will had been unable to set it free. 

“She forgave you your moodiness, your silence, and chased away the ghouls from the past. She added joy to your misery,” Hannibal continued and ran a finger over the bridge of Will's nose, forcing him to close his eyes. “She made you a home.” Will sighed at the words that brought a sickening pressure behind his eyes. He kept them closed and felt a soft fingertip tracing over his lids, withdrawing the tears from the back of his sockets as he fawned out Will's lashes with a soft caress.

“How else could you repay her, but by filling the hole that had been left in her own life?”, Hannibal spoke, almost as if reciting from a book. His voice even, pleasant, soft like the pastel colors in an old-fashioned children's book. It was easy to forget that the words had razorblades to the bottom of each letter uttered, marking their way into Will's flesh. To forever be carried, and forever read back.

“You repaid her with a marriage,” Hannibal concluded, running his fingers up into Will's hairline and the Omega sighed deeply through his mouth before opening his eyes. He stared at his Alpha, all strong, sharp lines and earthly dark eyes, and breathed. For a while, it was all they did. Hannibal wasn't waiting for him to speak. He didn't need Will to deny or confirm anything he had just said. Yes or no, it didn't change the outcome.

Will was startled out of the haze when Hannibal started to unbutton his shirt by the collar, moving his fingers down to expose the hidden skin on his throat. He let it happen as he watched Hannibal's eyes come into contact with the brutal rash, and the hideous discoloration of his bruises. Nothing changed in his physique, no muscles pulled, no fingers twitched, but Will thumped the back of his head against Hannibal's knees when he was startled by a sudden flash of bright, hard, orange flames inside his Alpha's skull, roaring and twisting and sparkling like a campfire in a storm. 

“Tell me what happened,” Hannibal said, even, easy, but Will knew the devil was hidden big and bright behind those perfectly sculptured bones. He huffed, bit his teeth into his bottom lip and shook his head at the beast before him. “Your boyfriend came to visit me,” he chuckled dryly and watched flames lick around the perfectly round and pitch black pupils that, in close-up, resembled a howling abyss. Hannibal did not answer him, but traced the patterns of his swollen flesh with his fingertips. Up around his Adam's apple, and down against his collarbone.

“Ow,” Will whined when Hannibal brushed his windpipe with his thumb, and the Alpha was quick to remove his fingers. Instead, he reached for Will's swollen hands and took them into his. “I apologize,” he said, and pressed a kiss to Will's palm as he observed the bumpy rash near his eyes. Will winced once under the touch on his oversensitive flesh, but did not fight the attention lavished upon the damaged skin. That too, after all, lessened in his Alpha's presence. 

“He is deranged, Hannibal,” Will snorted fiercely, bringing his eyes to the ceiling as Hannibal kneaded a thumb into his palm. “He presented for a watercolor painting. Did you know this?” He briefly brought his gaze to Hannibal, pointed, widened, and watched the Alpha tend to his hands without lifting his eyes to meet his Omega. “Yes,” Hannibal spoke evenly and Will huffed, lowering his head back to Hannibal's knees as he shook his head. “His Alpha is a fucking picture, Hannibal. He wants to bond with you to 'fuel' a fucking picture.” He knew he was raising his voice as his jaw tightened around the words, but yesterday's fury had not yet been suppressed, and he felt it singing just beneath his sternum.

“I am aware,” Hannibal said, his voice thrumming with something primal, calming, and Will gritted his teeth at his own slowing heartbeat. Fucking animal tricks. “Yes, well, I'm not,” he grunted. “I have no fucking clue what it even means.” Will blinked when he suddenly felt his finger enveloped by a wet, soft heat, and lifted his head to watch Hannibal suck his index finger past his lips. “Wha...,” he barely suppressed a moan when a tongue ran over the inside of his knuckles, right before the Alpha let him slip from his mouth again. “He presented for the manifestation of what the picture represents,” he said against the wet fingertip. “Don't look at it with reason and expect to understand.”

Will pressed his lips together as he stared back at the dull ceiling. “Don't bond with him,” he spoke stiffly as he felt Hannibal's open lips press to the skin of his wrist. Will struggled to hold still when the Alpha licked a broad stripe along the inside of his palm. “That's of no concern, to either one of us,” Hannibal said before sucking Will's thumb between his lips and licking around the digit with an exploring tongue that made Will whimper on his Alpha's lap.

“What are you doing?”, he stuttered, raising his head again to get a proper look at his own finger between those pink lips, and with a flash of his memory, he thought back of the last time someone had brought his fingers to their mouth. “Are you tasting him?” A sudden but hot flash of envious anger burst up as he launched himself upwards and yanked back his hand, cradling it against his chest as his nostrils flared and his eyes twitched with wild fury. If he was now being used as a vessel for a sick courtship between...

“No, Will,” Hannibal was quick to hush him, almost smiling as his eyes grew tender, and his fingers reached back for Will's clutched hand. “I'm curing you. Look at your hand.” Will was reluctant to obey, stubborn and ashamed, but curious enough to slowly unfold his fingers in Hannibal's cradling hold. The skin was a beautiful map of colors now, between fiery red to pale pink and everything in between. He could clearly see where Hannibal's tongue had touched him, as the rash had already begun to fade.

Will blinked at the sight and shifted his eyes to Hannibal's. “Are you the antidote to my arch nemesis?”, he said with raised eyebrows and for the first time today, he watched Hannibal smile his teeth bare. “I'm a cure to his rivaling hormones,” he responded and Will huffed a grin, teeth on his bottom lip. “But of course...”, he mumbled sarcastically. He stayed upright in Hannibal's lap as the Alpha brought his hand back to his mouth and continued to lavish his skin with gentle licks and sucks. “Your Omega feels the threat before you can,” he spoke between presses of his tongue, “to which your body responds by revealing the biological imbalance between you.” He kissed open mouth kisses along every finger as Will watched him with eyes that blew wider with every stroke of tongue. “This results in an intolerance for a rivaling Omega's scent and touch,” Hannibal smiled against his palm before kissing the side of his little pink down to his wrist. “See it as your own, built-in warning system.”

Will breathed deep, only half-listening as he followed Hannibal's pink tongue on his flesh. “It is the far opposite of our connection,” Hannibal all but purred against his mate as he worked his moist lips over the swollen, sensitive flesh of Will's hands with soft nips and pushes. “Together, we are in perfect balance,” And then, there were no more words, but only the wet noises of mouth on skin and Will struggled to keep still and quiet when Hannibal's greedy tongue lapped between the dips of his fingers. The feeling and the view were more than enough to stir heat inside his tightening jeans.

But the rash disappeared, like snow in the sun, and it wasn't before long that Hannibal pushed Will's shirt further open, and started working his mouth over the sensitive, red and bruised skin of his throat.  
“Uhh...”, Will moaned the instant those lips brushed the pulsing point beneath his collarbone, and he felt himself go slack against the wall. He wrapped his arms around the gray-clad shoulders as Hannibal licked stripes up his throat, beneath his jaw and down to the hollow of his sternum. “God.” Will was hard and wet inside his jeans within a moment as his mind clouded with hot need. He arched into his mate's touch, desperate for more and lower and everything Hannibal as he bared his neck and whined needily into his Alpha's hair, pulling at his clothes, buckling his hips, and, and, and...

... And then it stopped.

“It's improving,” Hannibal said as he pulled back, looking at the skin with scrutinizing eyes as two fingers came to wipe the corners of his mouth. His hair was slightly disheveled, his eyes were blown and his cheekbones were a lively pink. He reached out a hand over Will's bruised throat with regret in those near-black eyes. “This, I can't cure.” Will blinked, flushed bright and bewildered as he reached for his own throat. The rash was gone, the skin was smooth. “It will heal,” he said, out of breath as he watched Hannibal pull away and take a seat beside him on the bed. He, too, was hard beneath his clothes and Will felt his breath hitch as he looked at the closed bathroom door.

The desire, the need for him was all that was left. “Do you...”, he started, struggling with the words as he reached out to touch Hannibal's thigh. “Do you want to...?” A hand covered his, squeezed gently and wrapped itself within his touch. “No.” Hannibal answered. 

Will's head whipped to the side as he looked straight into his Alpha blown, light golden eyes. “No?”, he frowned, stunned by the unexpected reply as he watched Hannibal's tired smile, and felt his hand rubbing gentle circles on his own.

“It would feel too much like a goodbye,” Hannibal said, and Will's jaw tightened. He let his eyes fall to his knees and blinked hard to keep emotions at bay. Hannibal's nose found its way to his neck before he pressed a light kiss beneath his ear. “I don't want to taint something so perfect with something so devastating.” 

Will pushed away from the wall and dropped himself sideways, back with his head in Hannibal's lap, as he sniffled against the prison jumpsuit. “In other words, you are too sad to fuck me,” he grumbled, drawing patterns on Hannibal's knee with his cured index-finger. 

Hannibal pushed out air in a laugh, and brought his hand back to Will's long curls. “Crudely put,” he answered as Will buried his face against Hannibal's legs, hiding the shame, the tears, the longing he knew would be open for his Alpha to read. Hannibal only soothed him with warm, sturdy hands on his shoulders, down his back, up his sides. “Come back for it,” he then said, almost gentle enough for Will not to hear the challenge. He huffed against Hannibal's knees before he turned his face upwards, watching the warm, ginger eyes stir with hot sorrow. 

“Will you call me when you get to the house?”, Hannibal asked, and Will smiled tight and broad at the parental quality of the question. He pressed his hands to his face and pulled the skin down in a tired, less than elegant gesture. “I don't know,” he spoke tiredly. “I don't...” -

“Try,” Hannibal urged and Will laughed one, humorless chuckle as he grabbed hold of his Alpha's hands, absently playing with the fingers. “I think I should try not to call you,” he said, a helpless shrug to his honest words and Hannibal blinked a second too long. “I know you think that,” he said, tracing a finger over Will's eyebrow.

The Omega huffed, shaking his head as he squeezed Hannibal's hand in his. “I'm not dying,” he said pointedly, lips and eyes determinedly tight. “I'm coming back. On two feet, remember?” Will held his Alpha's eyes for as long as he allowed him. “I can't promise myself to you. But I can promise you that,” he said, watching a suppressed snarl dive under the surface of Hannibal's features as he looked back at his Omega. And Will hated it. Will felt that pain like his own, and it made him ill from root to tip. He couldn't promise his mate what he had promised someone else. Wasn't that how it worked?| Wasn't it no longer his to promise?

Hannibal's finger ran over Will's teeth until the skin caught on the fang in the corner of his mouth. He tasted blood on his lips and watched it fall from the little mark on the fingertip before it landed on his tongue. “You are the only one I've ever allowed to make me bleed, beyond my control, with a fair chance of death,” Hannibal said, almost pleasantly as he smeared the newly welling drop against his Omega's lips, as if feeding a baby animal. Will licked his tongue over the rusty red and shook his head before he grabbed Hannibal's hand, and brought his finger between his lips. “No,” he whispered. “No death.”

**

Dinner was served. Two trays arrived, and it was never questioned whether Will was joining Hannibal for his evening meal this time. Mashed potatoes, overcooked cauliflower and two pork sausages that drenched the paper plate with a dark brownish-red grease. They both moved to the table, took their usual seats across from each other, and picked at the sand-like mash with their plastic forks. Will leaned his head on his hand as he tried to bring the food to his lips, but their eyes were never far from the other, and there was no room for hunger in his belly.

“Frederick Chilton,” Hannibal then dropped as he took a sip of water, his little finger raised into the air. Will sighed, dropped his fork unceremoniously to the table and leaned back into his chair. He had secretly hoped the dominant stench of The Dragon would overpower everything else, but it was no surprise Hannibal's sharp nose had picked up on the man's presence.

“He watched us have sex,” Will deadpanned, as if it was a perfectly decent answer to the non-question. Hannibal's fork speared a sausage until the meat split under the force. His expression, otherwise, remained undisturbed. “Did he tell you this?”, the Alpha asked him, appearing only mildly interested in the information, if not for the calculating glance behind his conversational demeanor. Will smiled as he briefly closed his eyes. “It was implied,” he said, bouncing one leg from where it crossed atop the other. “He didn't need to spell it out.”

Hannibal hummed, and Will could see the Alpha's fingers gliding up and down the plastic fork as his eyes became lost in what could well be a vision of the future. “I have a special place reserved for him,” Hannibal spoke softly, pleased, almost seductive, and Will heard the beautiful darkness pulling beneath the words. “In hell?”, he resorted good-natured as he tapped his bottom lip with his plastic spoon. “Or amongst a wide range of herbs and spices?”

His mate chuckled, warm, soft and caressing like a cashmere sweater, with eyes that shimmered with a brush of heat, but this remained the only answer as he carved into the other sausage, cutting vertically along the midsection, as if dissecting or operating on a small animal. Will let the plastic slide between his teeth and tapped his shoe against the side of the leg of the sturdy table. “As long as you don't feed him to me,” he said, imagining a time and space far from here, and watched Hannibal's silent smile stretch his face when he noticed his mate grimace.

And he did sleep, after that. Wrapped in Hannibal's arms, nose pressed against his Alpha's shoulder, a cocoon of warmth on the bed. Just a few hours, he promised, because he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. And it was dreamless, and it was safe. “Shhh,” Hannibal soothed him whenever his eyes flew open, searching for the time on his watch. “I'll wake you.” And then his eyes would close, and his bones would sag back into the warm comfort that they longed for, but rarely found. “Trust me,” he heard Hannibal whisper against his hair, and smiled wide against the clothed collarbone with his eyes tightly shut. If only.

When he woke again, the daily light had yet to be turned on. What had woken him were rubbing hands down his back, and searching lips on the corner of his jaw. Will pulled back, letting their eyes connect in the dark, and just like the animals hidden in the forest, Hannibal's eyes lit inside his skull with a yellow glint that was terrifying for others, as it was beautiful to him. “It's 4:30,” Hannibal said, and Will dropped his head back on the pillow, cursing obscenely against Hannibal's arm. He had to leave soon. He still had to pack, and he needed to be ready by 7:00 A.M.

Instead of moving, however, he pushed himself against Hannibal's body and arched his neck when those lips found their way back to his rosy skin. “Hmmm,” he sighed into the night as that soft mouth kissed a smooth path up to his jaw, over his chin, and pressed gently against his lips before pulling away. No teeth, no tongue, just clean, dry, soft lips. Will lifted his own head to chase after the touch, and pulled his lips full and firm against his Alpha, opening his mouth into the kiss as his hands grabbed hold of the prison suit in the dip of Hannibal's waistline.

His plea for more was denied when Hannibal smiled against his open, gasping lips before pulling away and his hands came to grab Will's when they tried to slide down and curve over his ass. Then, there was a moment where they blinked at each other in the darkness, and in the reflection of Hannibal's glowing orbs, he watched a hint of blue green, shining from his own. He sighed long and deep, lowering his eyes as Hannibal's hand came to caress the sides of his face. “I'm sorry,” Will muttered, feeling his throat swelling under the sudden shame and grief that took him. He had no pride left, where Hannibal was concerned. Hannibal, on the other hand, had enough pride to offset all human insecurity worldwide singlehandedly. “Come back for it,” Hannibal repeated with a smile, but his eyes, too, were strained with an unbearable sadness that only Will could detect. 

He was suddenly overcome with a maddening need to just give up and have this. To not leave, or think or feel, but just reach for Hannibal and forget the world. He could do that, today. Maybe even tomorrow. But he wondered how long it would take for it to start eating away at him. How often he would dream of Molly's tears or Hannibal's knife.

They both sat up, facing each other on the bed as Will reached for Hannibal's hand. “I am sorry,” he said again, hoping he could bring a deeper layer to the message this time as he swallowed hard and looked at his mate through his too long fringe of hair. Hannibal looked back, let his hand be taken and illuminated the darkness with his eyes. “Come back,” he said this time and Will huffed through a smile as he lowered his eyes to their joined hand. “Yes,” he agreed breathlessly as Hannibal brushed the offensive hair from his forehead.

“And be very careful,” he said, slow, deliberate, underlining the message with the intensity of his voice and eyes. Will flicked his eyes back up and shook his head before pulling back his hand to search for his shoes. “This Dragon guy...”, he started with a sigh, and threw up a hand to indicate no other words were coming, or needed. The room stayed silent and Will turned back to his mate, one shoe clutched between his fingers. “Hannibal?”, he asked as he watched the Alpha on the bed, his eyes suddenly frosted, far away, and his body tight with sudden tension. Will frowned. “Do you still believe he is not out to get me?”, he asked, sitting back on the bed as he fished his other shoe from under the mattress. “Do you still believe he has no intention to hurt me?” He rubbed a hand over his sore, swollen throat and watched Hannibal's eyes flash heavily to the bruised skin before Will added, “More than this?”

Hannibal watched the discolored skin. Despite the already fading colors, the picture was still very much present. His eyes became duller, flickering like a dying candle, as he watched Will with a face of smooth marble. Beautiful, impenetrable, shielding his thoughts and feelings with unbelievable skill. “I do not believe he wants to kill you,” he said, and Will felt a shiver of cold run down his back when he peeked inside the mask through those black pupils, and saw the definition of hell. Hannibal was angry. Hannibal was furious. And this hell wasn't just hot. What he saw in that dark abyss had the destructive capacity of a thousand blazing suns. It was total and complete annihilation. Just a blink, and it was gone.

Will breathed in deep, sat himself upright and shook his head. “OK,” he said, slightly bewildered, shoes forgotten on the floor. “I... OK.” Hannibal leaned forward at Will's fidgeting frame and took his hands, showing now the gently golden liquid that stirred warm inside his eyes. “He will not hurt you,” he said, not just determined this time, but with absolute certainty. His eyes might have been warm with affection, and unquestionable love, but the outside was glass as hard as the prison walls. He knew there was more behind the words, and that there was a story Hannibal kept stored behind his tongue, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter, because he was leaving. 

The tension quickly melted when Hannibal moved in to kiss him, and this time, it was real. It was a tender press, but lips opened, hands wound in hair and Will moaned when he felt his Alpha lick greedily into his mouth, cupping his face with two broad hands. Their lips slid together, sweet and warm, as they both tasted autumn and winter, united as the dark season they represented. They were close, so close, and pulling even closer on clothes and hair and backs of necks. Hannibal moaned when Will bit gently on his lip with a short fang, and Will shivered at the abandoned noise. His fingers dug hard into the back of Hannibal's skull as he conquered all of him, and said everything that countered what he spoke with his words. 

He sucked Hannibal's upper lip between his own, grasping him with both hands with eyes closed, suppressing tears made of his own frailty. His own incapability. Hands pressed harder on his cheeks, and with one last press of lips, Hannibal pulled back from him. Foreheads rested and leaned on the other, both men flushed, disheveled, breathing short and sharp, and as Hannibal's hands fell away from his neck, Will felt his consciousness bleed from his head, down to his feet. 

...Shoes. Right, shoes. Fuck. He was helped into his coat by Hannibal as he buttoned his shirt back to the top. “I hope you will find the answers you are looking for,” Hannibal said quietly as his fingers moved Will's fidgeting hands on the buttons and reached to do them up with much more precision. “As I hope you will take good care of yourself.” Will sighed, and he wondered how many people had seen the man behave in such a human manner. He was in pain, but it took a hawk with infrared vision to see it. Will was that hawk.

“You're the proudest man I have ever met,” he said with a genuine smile and eyes that burned, and Hannibal mirrored the expression, a glint behind the black of his eyes. “I have reason to be proud,” he spoke, straightening his shoulders as his eyes stayed calm and straight on his Omega. Already, Will could see the longing he recognized as his own. “You do,” he said, swallowing against the pressing feeling on his chest.

“Shall I?”, Hannibal gestured towards the button that would warn the guards, but before his mate could ring the bell, Will pressed a hand on Hannibal's arm. Their eyes met, and Hannibal watched him with curious wonder as Will took a breath, and awaited what his mind would push forward first. “I've... I stole the footage of us from Dr. Hammings' office,” he said quietly, his words hurried and his lips twitching with uncertainty. Hannibal looked at him, steady and still, before he rose one eyebrow, widened his eyes, twitched his lips. Expressions that were easily missed by anyone else, but never Will. He was surprised. Amused. Aroused. “Stop,” Will warned his Alpha with squinting eyes as he watched his mate blink away the betraying emotions. “No,” Hannibal responded, holding up one hand as his eyes narrowed with pleasure. “I must say, well done.”

They watched each other, mixing amusement with agitation, and Hannibal tilted his head back an inch to watch his mate with more scrutinizing eyes. “Did you watch?”, he asked, but the question mark was barely there. Amber eyes sparkled like bourbon, and Will looked down at his hands. “I wasn't going to,” he replied through stiff lips, feeling the pressure of embarrassment rising to his ears. “But you were curious,” Hannibal said, all-knowingly, always, and Will looked sideways in defeat, as he felt a betraying smile of his own play on his mouth. “Yes.”

Hannibal linked his hands behind his back and tilted his head to lure Will's gaze back to him. “What did you think?”, he asked, rather forward and Will huffed at the question as he met the now lively eyes of his ever plotting Alpha. “There's not a word in my vocabulary that would provide a suitable answer to that question,” Will said as he shook his head, watching his mate watch him in return as a sudden, scheming glow lit inside the depths of his black pupils.

“Keep them somewhere safe, but don't destroy those discs,” he instructed, leaving Will to stare at him as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You want to watch them,” Will said, not longer pretending to ask as he ran a playful tongue behind his teeth. “I do,” Hannibal answered outright, as his eyes lured Will in with sweet honey, before they bore a hole into his skull and scooped out the inside.

Will felt the hot shame replaced by hot images of him and Hannibal sitting on his motel bed, watching those discs together as they let their hands wander over clothes, beneath clothes, without clothes. He pressed his lips tight as his Alpha rang the bell. “For research purposes? Medical interests? Study resources,” he couldn't help but tease as he zipped up his coat, keeping his eyes on Hannibal as he stepped forward and stole one last kiss from his mate's lips. Hannibal responded tenderly to his affection, lingering before pulling back. “No,” he said, his eyes glittering with that hot honey. “Nothing like that at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I pledge to you here and now that this will not ever become the the big Will and Molly show! Or the big Will and anyone else show for that matter! I feel some people are afraid I'm gonna make Will go live with Molly for a million chapters and make them go on a nice holiday, describe them cuddling up in the movie theater and have them renew their vows while all the dogs are dressed up in tuxedo's. Domestic bliss and straight vanilla sex! No! No no no!!!   
> Please trust me when I say that I do not enjoy time away from Hannibal! No one is more fun to write that my favorite cannibal!^.^   
> I really hope you enjoyed this smut-less chapter filled with bitter chuckles and desperate glances and a little bit of tongue action ^.^ I love you guys so super much! Your comments and kudos are better than fucking chocolate cake! 
> 
> (fuck....now I want chocolate cake)


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So...”, Dennis said as he expertly steered around the other traffic with a car much too large for these streets. “Time to go back to the ol' ball and chain, huh?” Will blinked rapidly at the words, wrapped inside the cheerful tone, as he turned his head and looked at the too blond, too tanned man beside him. “What?”, he asked, startled by the blunt remark. Dennis sat back in his seat, clutching the large steering wheel with both hands as he looked at Will from over his sunglasses. “Your wife? It's a joke,” he said, grinning so innocently carefree that Will could only nod back, no matter how inappropriate the comment. “My wife, yes,” he sniffled, digging nails into the seat, and he kept his eyes straight ahead on the endless outside.

He had packed everything. His clothes, toothbrush, laptop, one of those toenail clippers that shoots bits of nail across the room at high speed, never to be found again. He had bought one of those in the corner shop a few blocks from here, a week earlier. His nails and hair grew like weeds since he had presented Omega, and he had barely been able to fit inside his shoes the day after his heat had ended.

He checked for forgotten items in the bathroom, under the bed, behind the desk and around the pillows in the chair. Nothing. Everything was tucked away inside his single suitcase and his slouchy overnight bag. He was ready. 4 minutes to 7:00 A.M. He had made it in time. He let out a long sigh as he sat on the stripped bed and rubbed his hands together. He was going home. He had known this day would come but now it was upon him, he couldn't quite grasp what it meant, or how it should make him feel. Right now, he could not get his head around the idea of not being able to walk into that prison cell anymore and see his mate, short hair and dressed in pale gray, standing behind the thick glass. His eyes smiling, even when his mouth didn't.

Now, was he forgetting something? What was he supposed to remember? Will sighed as he glanced around the room and watched the empty desk, the TV, his duffel bag with his laptop. Oh, God. Those discs. Will's eyes flashed to that spot right beside the television where he knew he'd last left them. There was nothing. Had he packed them? He must have swooped them up along with the books and the dirty socks that had littered the space, right into the open suitcase holding the messy pile of his belongings. He had only returned a quarter past six, and in the packing and cleaning frenzy, there had been little room for detail. He got up and checked behind the desk, inside the drawers, the trashcan and even the inside of the unused wardrobe. Nothing. He must have packed them. He must have. And even if he had felt the desire to turn his suitcase inside out, there simply was no time left. 

Yes, he must have packed them.

He checked himself out at two minutes to seven, waking a large, balding man in his late fifties who sat behind a desk and drooled into his coffee. “Pleasant stay?,” the man grumbled through a bushy mustache and Will gave the best friendly smile he could manage through his cramped jaws. “Yes, thank you,” he replied and remembered the nightmares, the phone calls, the elephant, Jack, Chilton and The Dragon choking him against the window. He also remembered the three fingers pumping in and out of his dripping opening as he watched himself being fucked by his dominant Alpha mate.

“Where you off to now?”, the man asked without looking up from his computer screen. It was a common question, of course. Standard procedure. The bare minimal of customer hospitality. And Will's answer was just the same. The bare minimal of polite conversation. “Home,” he mumbled, as the man lifted his round head to meet his gaze with small, beady gray eyes. “Where's home?”, he grunted, his bushy blond eyebrows low on his forehead. And fuck, if that wasn't the question. Will's shoulders tensed as his tongue faltered on the answer. He froze. Because, what he should have said was Sugarloaf Key in Florida. That was where he had his house, his family, his job. Instead, he looked at the man who eyed him critically from behind the desk. “I'm not really sure,” he answered.

Before the man could respond, a car horn honked outside the window and had both Will and the bald man stir in surprise. “That's my ride,” Will said, swinging his bag over his shoulder as he put up his hand in greeting. He was grateful for the disrupted moment and took the handle of his suitcase as he hurried to the door. “Safe trip,” the receptionist huffed from behind his mustache, right before Will dropped the heavy door and let it fall back in its lock.

Outside, a large, pitch black Hummer was parked in front of his motel room. Leaning against the door and sucking on the end of a cigarette was a young, blond man dressed in an all-black uniform. He smiled as Will approached and gave a friendly wave before stomping out the half-smoked butt. “Dennis,” Will said in the form of a greeting as he frowned at the unexpected face. Dennis grinned at him, the heady scent of smoke clinging to his skin. “Mr. Graham. I'm here to bring you to the airport, sir,” he spoke, enthusiastically polite and Will's eyes widened. He had expected Alana to call him a cab, which would have been more than generous. He had not expected, however, to be escorted by one of her very own staff members.

“Aren't you a security guard?”, Will asked, lowering his bag from his aching shoulders to the side of his feet. Dennis nodded again, and rummaged through his bomber jacket before extracting a loose, unwrapped stick of gum. He gestured to Will with the slightly discolored piece, who quickly shook his head and watched it disappear between those perfect, straight, white teeth. “I run errands for Mrs. Bloom all the time,” he explained, rather pleased with himself, reaching for the handle of Will's suitcase. “Here, let me take your luggage.”

Will watched in amazement when Dennis took the heavy suitcase and the bag in one hand, bounced around the car on his heavy army boots and lifted them into the back of the Hummer with an easy swing of his arm. “All set?”, he yelled from the back of the car as he slammed the trunk and slid on a pair of pitch black sunglasses. Will felt his stomach knot at the question, and flashed his eyes in the direction of the park. He had to go. He had a family. “Yeah,” he said through his thick throat, and sunk his thumbs in the narrow pockets of his jeans. He was afraid, terrified, of what this time and distance between them would do. But if he ever wanted to give himself a chance at a normal life, a life he had promised someone else, there was nothing else to be done but get in that car and go.

Dennis gestured to the passenger seat as he climbed into the monstrous vehicle, and Will took his seat beside the guard without another word, without another thought. He fastened his seatbelt with a click as he threw a glance over his shoulder to inspect the spacious inside of the Hummer. “Pretty cool, huh?”, Dennis beamed when he watched Will's wandering eyes. “This baby is not a work car. She is all mine,” Will could almost hear the twinkle of the sunlight that reflected off those perfect teeth, and gave a polite smile. “Very nice,” he offered, trying to find a way to lift the pressure he felt around his head, like a tight belt around his temples.

Dennis turned the key and an obscene roar erupted from under the hood as the car shook to life. His chair vibrated pleasantly under him as he looked down on the road from his high seat. One last time he glanced back at the motel door, hating the place with a violent fury, yet remembering every nightly phone call, that smooth, husky voice against his ear. Dennis turned the car and the door was gone. His eyes settled on the road ahead, one hand clutching the belt across his chest as the other rested on the seat beside his leg.

“So...”, Dennis said as he expertly steered around the other traffic with a car much too large for these streets. “Time to go back to the ol' ball and chain, huh?” Will blinked rapidly at the words, wrapped inside the cheerful tone, as he turned his head and looked at the too blond, too tanned man beside him. “What?”, he asked, startled by the blunt remark. Dennis sat back in his seat, clutching the large steering wheel with both hands as he looked at Will from over his sunglasses. “Your wife? It's a joke,” he said, grinning so innocently carefree that Will could only nod back, no matter how inappropriate the comment. “My wife, yes,” he sniffled, digging nails into the seat, and he kept his eyes straight ahead on the endless outside.

“Must be nice to see her again,” Dennis said as he turned onto the highway and roared the car into higher speed. Will bit on the inside of his cheek, almost wishing he had accepted that stick of gum to keep his mouth occupied. “I have no idea, Dennis,” he sighed truthfully as the guard zigzagged his way through traffic with much enthusiasm and brilliant skill. “Well, no,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and nodding his blond head. “I mean, things have been a little weird, of course. I get that.” The conversational tone made Will smile despite himself, as he huffed air from between his teeth. “Yeah,” he said. “A little weird.”

Dennis drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, bobbing his head along to the soft tunes that sprung from the radio. Will hadn't even noticed it was on. His head was full with white noise, and screeching, scratching whines from his beast. He tried to listen to the music instead, focusing to hear the tunes above the dull, pounding bass. A car honked its horn when Dennis cut in front of him, and the guard raised a hand in an apology that didn't match the wide smile on his face. “I hope things work out,” he said kindly, eyes on the road behind his dark glasses. Will ran his tongue over his teeth. “With whom?”, he asked, shifting his eyes back to the guard as his nails scratched at the seatbelt across his belly.

“Whomever,” Dennis shrugged again and chuckled as he leaned his body back in his seat, arm stretched out to hold the wheel. His posture was the poster boy definition of _cruising_. “I know Dr. Lecter is not...”, he started, wiggling his head from side to side, searching for an appropriate word Will doubted he would find. “No Dennis,” he cut him off. “He isn't.” He felt the eyes shifting beneath the dark glasses as Dennis held up one hand from the steering wheel and pulled his lips into a lopsided grin.

“Look, I know it's none of my business,” he said, eyes twinkling with contradiction. “I've know the man for three years now and to be frank, he's always scared the shit out of me.” Dennis' eyes suddenly widened behind his glasses, showing Will his perfectly shaped, blond eyebrows peaking above the dark frame, as the guard pressed three fingers to his lips. “Shit, sorry, sorry,” he quickly grimaced and Will knew he must have broken some sort of rule by using profanities on the job. He chuckled dryly, shaking his head has he stared out of the right window. “It's appropriate phrasing,” he said with a stiff smile as he watched the trees rush by in a green haze.

“He has always been nothing but polite to me, really,” Dennis continued, steering into the empty left lane and hitting the gas with his foot. “But it's in the eyes, you know?” Will looked back at the security guard, who shot him a look over his glasses. “Like, behind all the good manners there is a lion that can pounce at any moment.” Will huffed at the analysis and folded his arms around himself. “I know,” he said, closing his eyes at the image it painted inside his head. There was nothing untrue about the statement. Hannibal was that lion, majestic and proud and powerful. He was also the wolf, with glowing eyes and dripping fangs, hunching his back before leaping, grabbing, shredding any threat to tiny little pieces. And he also was that man, intelligent, elegant, evil in the purest, cleanest form.

“Yeah,” Dennis sighed, smacking his gum between his teeth. “And when you came, everything intensified, like, a hundred times over.” Will's ears peaked, but he didn't move, or shifted his gaze from the road as Dennis licked his lip with the tip of a pink tongue. “Before you, I hardly ever saw him smile or frown, cry. He was just... you know, a mask. It freaked me out. Like, psychopath killer style,” Dennis said and Will felt his insides wring tight as he willed himself to watch the passing trees. “Sure,” he said, and laughed a breath in afterthought at the words. _Psychopath killer style_. Hannibal wouldn't enjoy that.

Dennis put up his hand when another Hummer passed them on the right lane, and a similar gesture returned from behind the other windshield. Will wondered briefly if people with the same vehicles were expected to greet each other like that. He sure never had. Dennis popped his gum again, leaving a strip of white on his upper lip. “And now, I have seen him do all of those thing like....a dozen times in a week. It's really weird,” he shook his head, dragged up his nose and went back to tapping his fingers on the wheel while Will felt all the blood, all the energy pull from his face down to his feet. God. Fuck. Fuck.

He gritted his teeth together and tried to not envision his mate, doing all those things, alone in his cell. He also tried very hard not to envision his mate not doing those things anymore, alone in his cell. The thought just hit home, so deep, he struggled to breathe calmly. Hannibal in pain was a thought he could no longer bear, without making it his own. “That's what love does, man,” Dennis continued innocuously, smiling with pressed lips as his eyes seemed lost on the road ahead. “It's the best and worst thing in the fucking world.”

The profanity thing seemed out the window now, but Will didn't even hear it. His mind was stuck on that single sentiment. Love. This, between him and Hannibal, was raw, instinctual, animal. He had no doubt in his mind, however, that Hannibal did love him. In the way he could love, Hannibal loved him, and even though Will struggled to understand what that meant, it speared his heart as much as it warmed it. And what _he_ felt, was chaos. There was love inside him, for Hannibal. And there was anger, and regret and pain and yes, beneath that, a sliver of hope, and real genuine affection. Love was among all that rubble, and he wondered if it could ever truly be shoveled out of the way, for it to be allowed to grow.

Dennis did not notice the tight pain on Will's face as he swayed his head to the music. “I had this girl once...”, he started, and Will turned his head back to the right to watch the road go by. Dennis continued his own stories of unfortunate conquests, and Will let the words pass his ears as he tried to drown his thoughts. He heard his stories about hot, blond babes that kept following him around after one-night stands, or the girlfriend who complained he spent too much time at the gym. Then the older woman who wanted a baby, the even older woman who bought him an expensive watch, and the barely legal student whose mother made a pass at him. Will sat like that, listening, watching the world for one long, empty hour. 

Then, airplanes came into sight, taking off not far from the highway, and speeding low over the road ahead. “Are you good with flying?”, Dennis asked, shaking Will from a trance as he took his hand from under his chin. “Huh?”, he croaked, having been silent for a good while. “Do you mind flying?”, Dennis asked him, and Will shrugged. “Eh... I don't enjoy it,” he admitted. Flying was not something he feared, but he didn't like being stuck in a single space with many other people. He also didn't enjoy being alone with his thoughts for many hours.

Dennis reached past him to open the glove box, taking a out a strip of white, round pills. “I always take one of these when I have to fly,” he said, handing Will the strip as he brought his hand back to the wheel. “One pill, one scotch, and you're out like a light for two hours straight.” He flashed Will a toothy grin as the Omega eyed the strip in his hands with heed.

“You want one?”, Dennis offered, but Will shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said, watching the tablets in his palm. He wasn't fond of pills. Not anymore. Not since he had vomited some of them back into the sink, together with Abigail's ear. They continued in silence as they watched the planes getting bigger, nearer, louder. The traffic thickened, the watchtowers peaked in the sky.

“Do these shorter flights have those little television screens in the headrest?”, Dennis wondered out loud, and Will sighed deeply against the passenger window, fogging it with his breath. He hadn't thought of putting a book in his hand luggage, either. It would be hours of just him, and his head. “I'll take one,” he croaked, holding up the strip of pills before pushing one into the palm of his hand and stuffing it down his pocket.

“Better safe than sorry, no?”, Dennis nodded, his smile as bright and generous as it ever was. Will pulled his lips up, a painful attempt. “Yeah, that about sums it up,” he answered, unable to stop himself from reflecting the answer on more than the mere pill. Better safe than sorry. He was fairly certain that one did not exclude the other.

**

He ordered two fingers of Whiskey the first opportunity he got, and tried not to notice the stewardess' odd stare as she went to collect him his drink. It was 9 A.M., and this would certainly earn him a place on a special list somewhere, but he didn't care. He took the pill, downed the Whiskey and leaned back in his chair, ignoring the overweight, sweaty businessman beside him that stared at his bruised throat, visible beneath his unzipped coat. He waited, as he kept his mind clear, numb, and tried to suppress the nerves. Yes, he was nervous. He was very, very nervous.

He could already feel the strain of being separated from Hannibal. It was that feeling of holding a leash while the dog just ran off and pulled at your arm. He felt that pull around his waist, behind his pelvis, inside his chest. He was afraid to see Molly again, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe he was terrified to look at her and feel nothing. Maybe he was afraid to look at her, and feel everything. Maybe he was just scared that she would reach out to him, and he wouldn't be able to reach back.

He closed his eyes and let his mind fall into black, as he closed the heavy door of the attic with another thick chain. The Omega was fuming, eyes red rimmed and teeth gnawing at the flesh of his own paw. But he was silent, for now, and Will turned away from him as he let the dark embrace him. It wasn't long before he was in a deep, mindless sleep.

And when he opened his eyes, he was in Wolf Trap, Virginia. 

He was outside in the field behind his old house, surrounded by the evening sky. It was dark, except for the lights that shone from the inside of his small home, lighting the sky with a glow that resembled fire. He stood in the field while his dogs played in the grass, sniffed the trees, barked at the critters that came out at night, and looked back at the picture he had so clear within his mind. The house, the safe haven. The boat on the sea. Nothing had ever felt like that, ever again. 

He turned around and made his way to the porch, looking inside through the dirty window. He remembered it so well. It had been his own little paradise, away from the world with his family of strays. The closest thing to a home he had ever found. Will blinked as he looked around himself. He hadn't been here in years, not after he had sold it. He had thought of it often, but never returned. 

Everything was silent but for the rustle of leaves in the wind and his hand reached to turn the knob of the back door. It was unlocked. Winston and Buster rushed past his legs as soon as the door swung open and he followed after them, stepping inside. It was exactly right. The scent, the colors, the furniture, it was all the same. It was his house. His home. He walked into the living room, spotting the unmade bed in the corner, and felt his heart shrink at the painful sight. No matter how much he had adored this place, he hadn't been able to stay. Too many memories. Too much of it too fresh, too real, too disturbing.

“Yes, I know you want some too. Wait your turn,” Will whipped his head to the side at the sound of a familiar voice coming from the comfy chair, and watched his dogs gathering around expensive, Italian leather shoes. “Hannibal,” he almost whispered as he walked around the chair to come face to face with his mate, impeccably dressed in a blue plaid suit. His hair was longer, his skin was tanned, his eyes were glowing. In his hand, he had little bits of sausage, and he was feeding it to Will's impatient dogs.

“Hello Will,” Hannibal said, smiling at him in a way that made Will weak in his core. Hannibal held up a piece of the meat and Buster lowered his butt to the tiled floor. “Good boy,” Hannibal praised as he gave the terrier his treat, and Winston was quick to follow the example, sitting himself down beside Hannibal's chair. “What are we doing here?”, Will asked, dumbfounded as he sunk himself into the opposite couch. He felt the broken spring, the worn foam beneath his seat. Even the stains on the fabric were an exact match. 

Hannibal looked healthy, young, bright, beautiful in his well-fitting clothes. “I don't know,” he said, looking rather amused as his eyes roamed across the familiar room. “I was in my cell and I must have dozed off. When I woke, I was here.”

Will frowned as he watched his mate pet Buster's ear, rewarding his obedience with more treats. “Is this real? Are we really here?”, he asked, hearing his voice rise in tone and pitch as he started to feel his sweat sticking to the skin beneath his shirt. “Yes and no,” Hannibal answered, a sly smile on his mouth that Will wished to take right off his face. With a kiss, or possibly a slap. “Meaning?”, he pressed between his teeth and Hannibal's eyes lit at his obvious agitation. “We are together, but only in spirit,” he said, brushing a finger over the worn leather of his comfy chair. “Our minds connect.” As did their eyes, over the cluttered coffee table between them. “You must have subconsciously called for me to join you in this room of your memory palace.”

Will let out a stuttering breath as he watched Winston jump on the couch on the seat beside him. The sausage was gone and Will sighed as he ran a hand through the soft fur in his neck. He missed that dog. He missed him the most. “I didn't know we could do that,” he said, thinking of all those wasted, nightly phone calls between them. “Neither did I,” Hannibal confessed, an ungrounded look in his eyes as he watched Will on his old couch. The Alpha folded his hands together on his lap, and in that moment it looked like they had traveled years back in time, where everything was like it ought to be.

“I don't know how I did it,” Will sighed, placing his boots atop the coffee table as he leaned back into the pillows. “That's not very helpful.” Hannibal eyed the dirty boots among the books, glasses and whatever little things littered the table. “We now know of the possibility,” he said with a thoughtful nod. Will let his eyes roam across the room as more dogs peddled in and settled on the rug near the fireplace. He watched the motor block, the piano, the desk with his fishing gear. That last sight was a clenching fist around his heart, forever bound to betrayal. It was why he had left this place.

“Why are we here?”, he asked, turning his eyes back to Hannibal, who tilted his head with a sweep of his longer hair. Buster was trying to jump on the Alpha's lap, but he stopped him with one, open hand against the little dog's furry chest. “This is your mind,” Hannibal said, moving his eyes along the ceiling. “You must still be fond of this place.” Will poked his tongue against the side of his teeth as he brushed one hand over the gritty fabric of his couch. “I am,” he admitted and Hannibal's smile deepened in the lines, his eyes wrinkling around the corners.

“We can make a home, together,” he then said, running his tongue over his lower lip. “One just like this.” Will's smile faltered as he brought his eyes back to his mate, and watched Hannibal's gaze run over the shabby couch, the worn rug, the clouds of dog hair in every corner. “Well, some alterations would be required,” he corrected himself with half a smile. “But something we would both enjoy.” He scratched Buster behind his ear, who proceeded to lick at his fingers as he pushed his hungry nose into the Alpha's palm.

Will hummed under his breath and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, I don't know,” he said, feigning skepticism. “I would always be wondering if you've been messing with my fishing lure.” Hannibal's gaze sharpened as he sat himself up straight and met the challenging stare from the Omega with open wonder. “You don't trust me,” he concluded, with a voice that bled like a deep wound beneath his skin, and Will felt his insides ache at the sound. But there was no room for pity. Not when he had his memories. “You set me up,” He bit at his mate. “You had me thrown in jail.” His voice rose in volume with every word and he felt himself growing heated with anger that had been long locked away. “Of course I don't trust you.”

A wince crossed Hannibal's face at his Omega's sneer before he folded his hands together and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Will,” he said, calmly determined. “What happened was unfortunate, but necessary. It was only ever a temporary solution.” Will chuckled, raising his eyebrows with a stiff smile on his mouth. “Because the arrow was pointing at you,” he said, his voice heavy on the words. “I was the decoy. The rabbit for the fox.” He bit a sharp fang on his own bruised lip and smiled up against the pain. “They didn't know they were hunting for a lion.” 

Hannibal pressed his touching fingertips to his lips and watched him with those golden eyes. “Precisely,” he spoke, his eyelids low, but his eyes a sharp glint inside his skull. “Nor did they know that the rabbit they had caught was only a disguise,” Hannibal purred and Will tightened his lips when his mate regarded him with deep fire in his wild eyes. “A wolf that had yet to understand that the costume was not his true identity.” Will grimaced openly before he dropped his eyes to Winston, and scratched the furry chin with two blunt fingernails. “I wasn't in on your little joke,” he mumbled, biting on his cheek as he cocked his eyes back at Hannibal, who sat back up in the chair and straightened his shoulders. Will wrung his hands together and tried to shake the pain that melted like hot glass in his heart, down his ribs, into his belly. “You are always curious, always playing games.” Their eyes crossed hot and hard across the room. “Always.”

Hannibal sighed a breath that came from deep within, and took his time with the next. His eyes flashed outside where there was nothing but darkness, but Will knew he could see plenty on the inside of his eyes. “My curiosity regarding you died the day you presented, Will,” the Alpha said after a moment of silence and Will felt his nose twitch at the heartfelt, lost stare that landed on him. He blinked at Hannibal before shaking his head. “I don't understand what that means,” he confessed between his teeth.

Hannibal stood up from the chair and made his way around the coffee table. Beside the couch, he halted, and reached down to scratch Winston behind his ear. There was that one spot that made the dog close his eyes in pure bliss, and Hannibal found it on the first try. “It means we are connected, bonded or not, and my instinct and my regard for you makes it impossible to harm you,” Hannibal said, and Will felt his chest tighten as he watched his Alpha with large eyes. “Directly, or by proxy.” Hannibal's eyes were glowing like heated glass and Will felt his heart pound harder in his chest.

He rose to his feet, coming to stand before his mate who reached to touch his cheek. The sensation was odd. Real, but not. It was like touching your own skin when you've been sitting on your legs for hours straight. There, but far away. Hannibal smiled, no doubt finding the experience similarly wondrous as he stroked his fingers experimentally down his Omega's neck. “If you would die...”, Hannibal said, releasing his words in a long, rueful breath. “You will perish,” Will finished for him and Hannibal smiled as he brushed his fingers through Will's hair. “I have told you before that you can trust me, now that we are mates.” He smiled when Will closed his eyes into the touch. “You too must have felt the connection. Us together, right here, is the very proof of it.”

Will pressed his lips together at the smile in his Alpha voice and let his head fall into the supporting hands that rested on his head as Hannibal continued to speak. “I cannot harm you or deceive you, if not out of love then out of self-preservation.” Will opened his eyes, and met glowing orange fire. Lips met his ear. “Your pain feels like my own.” The Omega lowered his eyes, bit his lip and shook his head as he reached for Hannibal's hand. “Even if you would not harm me...”, he choked, and Hannibal squeezed his hand, brushing his nose along Will's damp temple. “I could harm others,” the Alpha finished the sentence and Will tightened his lips, unable to stop himself from nuzzling against his mate. He was warm, but not as warm as usual. He smelled his scent, but not as strong as he normally would. They were together, but not really. “Yes,” he said. 

“And how do you feel about that?”, Hannibal asked him, pulling back to look at his mate who only tried to push closer with his nose beneath Hannibal's jaw. “I don't know,” he rumbled against the skin, wishing to bury himself there and just stay. Hannibal hummed, caressed the back of his head like a nursing mother and folded his arms around the Omega's waist. “A bond would change that,” he said and Will huffed a warm chuckle against the Alpha's neck, followed by a long and tired moan. “You have no idea how tempting that sounds,” he admitted defeatedly as he settled himself against Hannibal's shoulder and wrapped his arms around the Alpha's shoulders. “I do,” Hannibal said in return and Will swallowed hard at the words, turning his forehead to press into his Alpha neck so he could no longer see, or feel or think anything else.

They stood like that, as if dancing without moving, until Hannibal nudged his ear with his nose. “I do feel the need to assure you that my reasons for not wanting to harm or deceive you, come from my affection and regard for you,” he hummed against the Omega's ear and Will pushed back, looked up at his Alpha's sharp features, glowing eyes, pink lips. Hannibal smiled at him, illuminated like a firefly. “I do not wish to harm you, Will,” he said, his words close to drowning in the stream of air. “There is no room left for anything but my admiration, my desire, my devotion.”

Will breathed deep as his body felt liquefied around his bones. He looked at Hannibal with large eyes as his mate smiled, and cupped his warm neck with both hands. “For you, I have only love,” he spoke and a deep warmth spread from within Will, making his knees buckle, his head loll on his neck, as he reached for Hannibal's face with both his hands and brought him down for a kiss. Their lips brushed featherlight before...

_“Please fasten your seatbelt, fold away your table and put your chair in the upright position...”,_ Will gasped as he bolted upright in his plane seat when his eyes were suddenly assaulted by harsh light, and his ears by a shrill voice over the intercom. His breath stuttered as he looked around him and saw the businessman giving him a distasteful look before he turned away to look outside the window.

He tried to relax against the seat as the plane got ready to land, and blinked rapidly as his fingers touched his lips. It had seemed so real. Had it been a dream, or was it really possible that he had met Hannibal inside his own head? He didn't understand their connection quite yet, but maybe, possibly... it had felt so fucking real.

He tried to shake off the moment, the feeling, the confessions, the conversations. Now was not the appropriate time to dwell. Now, he was going to see his wife. 

His fingers shook as he carried his bag out of the plane and walked to baggage claim to collect his suitcase. Fuck. He was only half present, and that half felt sick with nerves. The other half was still feeling those lips on his.

He got his suitcase, went to the bathroom, scrolled through his phone and then there were no more moments left to stall. He wasn't ready, but would he ever be? The doors opened before him as he walked out and let his frantic eyes shoot across the arrival hall.

And there she was. There was Molly. His Molly. She was sunlight and beauty and her eyes lit up like the summer sky when they met his. She was radiant and bright, a light in the darkness, warmth in the cold, cold winter night. 

He looked at her. 

He looked at her and smiled. 

“Molly,” he said as he opened his arms to wrap her in his embrace.

He looked at her, and felt immensely sorry.

“Hey,” she said, smiling blissfully into his shoulder as she buried her nose in his neck, tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Hi,” he replied, brushing her hair from her face as he rested his chin on top of her head.

He looked at her, and felt he didn't belong.

“Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, here we go! Will is back 'home' and yes we all hate it but I promise things will be _going dowwwwnnnnn_ soon, and not in the sex way! ^.^ Hope you enjoyed the scene in Will's old house, and of course Dennis bringing Will to the airport :-P I write him like this guy I knew in high school who was always really happy and super cool and never did any homework but passed anyway and had a different girlfriend every week! You might know the type :-P If you would scrape off the first layer....I'm sure there would be nothing underneath! ;-)  
>  And Will and Hannibal might have discovered a new way to connect, even if it would not satisfy any need for physical contact, of course! Really hope you guys liked this chapter and I love you so much for reading and commenting and leaving me kudos!! I feel so spoiled every single week! ^.^


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Will you get another heat, at some point, and just go back?”, Molly's voice rose to a pitch that made Will wince inside his thick scarf. At last he flashed his red-rimmed eyes to hers and swallowed. She was frustrated, naturally, and he wished more than ever he could smile, feel the warmth he should feel when looking at his wife, and make it better. He should tell her he would fight this, find a cure, endure the pain. Even get that brain surgery Jack had told him about. Anything to be with her. But he couldn't, because behind that thrumming, nauseating pull inside his throat, pulsed only one desire. One he very gradually came to recognize as not an alien addition, but something of his own since long before he and Molly ever met. He shook his head, and tried to find a deeper sense of grief for it. “My connection with Hannibal is... complicated,” he spoke half-truths as his throat fluttered around his mate's name. “Time will tell what that means, Molly.” He swallowed, feeling his mouth pull at the words as he watched her through heavy, stinging eyes. “I'm sorry.”

What followed after the arrival could best be described as fragile moment upon fragile moment. Will let his mind retract inwards as Molly folded herself inside his arms on their walk to the car, burning like a hot pebble one just couldn't drop. “God, it is so good to see you,” she sighed, rubbing his shoulder with a flat hand as she pressed the button on the car keys in the other, unlocking the silver vehicle with a click from the doors. “Yeah,” he breathed in return as she released him, allowing him to walk around to get to the passenger's seat. Molly liked to drive, and his head was already bursting at the seams along his skull. “It's good to see you.” He reached for the door handle as their eyes met over the roof of the car, and he felt her blue gray gaze brush firmly along his features. Pain flashed through the curled lashes, hidden almost well enough.

“What?”, he asked as they both stepped into the car and lowered into their seats. Her curvy lips pulled up and her eyes shone with tender melancholy, before she reached out and grazed a finger along the purple skin beneath his eyes. “You look pretty dreadful,” she said with an honesty that showed the cracks of her troubled mind, as her hand slid down to cup his scruffy jaw. Will felt her skin, smelled the lotion on her hands and reached up to cover her finger with his own. “I'm OK,” he smiled closed-lipped but encouragingly before he redirected her touch from his face by lowering their linked hands to his lap.

It hurt. Her touch, it was pain. It made the Omega rattle the chains on the attic door as his Will's own flesh coiled at the mismatched structure and balance of their physical needs and compatibility. It felt sickly almost, weak, barely there and too much in the same instant. But he didn't let her go, as she squeezed his fingers reassuringly and inserted the car keys in the ignition. He came here to try and fight for his marriage, his promise, her happiness. But when he felt her eyes on his temple, he couldn't bring himself to meet the loaded stare and kept his gaze on their hands in his lap. Wishing more than anything he could slip out of the tired grip on his bones, without hurting her feelings. 

“Let's get you home, huh?”, she said, perking her voice up to ease the tension she must have felt on him and Will used the opportunity to free his fingers as his wife grabbed the wheel. “I'll make you a big cup of dark roast.” He smiled, keeping his eyes ahead of him as he swallowed against his dry throat. “Sounds good,” he nodded as he watched the familiar road, the houses, the thin layer of snow on the grass passing by the window. He was back home, after a little less than two weeks away. Instead, it felt like he was remembering this place from a long forgotten memory.

“Where's Walter?”, he asked after glancing at the empty back seat, as if the boy would have been sitting there the entire time without speaking. Two comic books littered the chairs, but there was no trace of Molly's son. No trace of his stepson. 

Will winced, remembering Hannibal's words like he could hear them whispered against his ear this very moment, _A boy who calls you Dad._ Not his son, not his child, not in his heart like a father would embrace his children. _A boy who calls you Dad._ No, he hadn't noticed his absence before now, nor had he expected him to be present. He hadn't been on his mind, until he had seen those comic books. Will ripped his eyes from the colorful pages of the disheveled books and dug nails into the legs of his jeans as he swallowed hard at the realization. As much as he had wanted to connect with the boy, he had never been much more than a side note in his marriage. He knew it, as much as he knew the boy had never looked at him with anything more than polite tolerance.

“He's at my Mom's,” Molly answered him, placing her gentle hand on his knee as she steered with the other atop the wheel, attempting a reassuring, comforting gesture. “Oh,” Will said as he fidgeted with a loose thread on his sleeve and scraped his teeth over the dry skin of his bottom lip. “I figured we would be in need of some peace and quiet,” she said, offering a kind but crooked smile as she continued to pet his leg. Despite her invasive touch, he couldn't help but feel a grateful buzz beneath his chest at her consideration, as his stay would certainly be challenging enough without having to smile convincingly at a moody boy in his early teens.

Will chewed on the nail of his thumb as he watched the window of his hair salon flash by, and flinched while reaching absently for his messy curls. He would have to get himself a haircut, soon and short, because he knew very well he was starting to resemble more animal than man with these wild manes framing his face. He wound a dark strand around his finger, breathed in deeply and tried not to remember just how Hannibal's fingers enjoyed entangling and fisting the unruly mop atop his head. Fuck. He bit down on the side of the nail again, clipping off a sliver with the sharp point of his fang. 

“Stop that,” a familiar voice burst from the inside of his skull, and Will's eyes widened as his shoulders jolted foreword at the fierce tone on the tightly spun accent. Had his inner self started to scold him in the voice of his Alpha mate, now? He pressed one open hand to his forehead, covering his eyes in the process. _'Fuck me.'_

“I'll go get him when things have settled a bit,” Molly offered kindly, still on the subject Will's mind had so quickly brushed past, and threw a worried glance in his direction. Will was quick to bring his hands back to his lap and smiled at her with pressed, stretched lips. “Sure, yeah. You know I....”, he started, not sure what to express while staying within the truth. He fell silent and felt her hand squeezing briefly in his upper leg, but didn't tear his gaze away from the offensive bumper sticker on the red car in front of them. _'It's a jeep. If I wanted a Hummer, I would call your sister'_ it said, and Will suppressed a huff, thinking of Dennis' monstrous vehicle. “I know,” Molly soothed, understanding what he didn't as her touch lingered on his knee before pulling her hand back to the wheel. He knew he would have to endure the touches, the kisses, the affection she wished to show him and would undoubtedly desire in return. If he wanted to try, for her, and see if things could go back to normal, he would have to give this his all, and meet her halfway.

“How was the flight? Did they seat you next to bad breath or smelly armpits?”, Molly tried as she aimed for that joking banter they had always been good at. Friendship was something they had always shared, easily, and Will smiled around his teeth. “Armpits, actually,” he said and huffed when Molly pulled a face as she steered the car onto a frozen dirt road. “It didn't bother me much, though. I slept through the flight.” He watched the trees pass by the window and tried not to let his eyes haze over with the memory of Hannibal, touching his face with phantom hands.

“Well, I'm glad you at least got some rest,” Molly said with a quick glance over his sickly pale skin. He knew what she saw, and he knew she was afraid, much more than she was letting on. “You still look tired,” she then added, keeping her tone purposefully light, and Will wondered how much of her struggles were kept from him. He wondered how much she suffered alone. Perhaps, just as much as he hid from her the things he knew would only hurt her more. The things he endured, without her. And in the process, they were losing each other in the heaps of altered facts and realities.

“I am,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck with a lost hand as he watched the roof of the house come into sight on the long road ahead. Her house. Their house. He dug his nails deep into the skin beneath his hairline, nearly drawing blood at the sudden, restless panic that crept up from inside his guts. “Shh,” whispered the voice inside his skull and he was quick to withdraw the hand from his neck. He wondered, with bewildered curiosity, how deep this connection between him and Hannibal actually reached.

**

His dogs came rushing out the back door when he stepped into the yard, and he squatted down to greet them with open palms. For the first time since he'd landed, a real smile stretched out over his face as his eyes sparkled bright at the sight of the wagging tails and long, dripping tongues. “Hey guys,” he cooed, scratching William under his chin as Daisy nudged her nose against his fingers. Mo and Smokey, Lizzie and Brent, Stewart and Dana, they all came to welcome him with wet licks and noses and clumsy bodies that bashed against his legs. 

“I missed you,” he sighed as he ruffled Stewart's long fur and stroked Mo's soft, wrinkled back. “They missed you, too,” Molly said from beside him, towering over him as she placed a hand on his shoulder.  
“We all missed you, you know?” He rose to his feet at her careful smile and looked at the caution inside the blue storm in her eyes. She was afraid to break him, would she push too hard. But she, too, needed something from him, even if she wouldn't ask. 

He breathed deep before he embraced her, pulling her against him with strong, determined arms as she rested her head against his chest. It wasn't a kiss, or a confession of love as they stared into each other's eyes. But it was the best he could do, and he hoped, for now, it was enough. He sighed against her hair with closed eyes and wished so badly he could unclench his painful jaw and tight fingers. All those traits he had cherished before, all those things he had liked about her, because she wasn't Hannibal... the warmth, the light, the soft and blond, the smile so easily given, it suddenly felt too hot, too bright, too soft. “I'm here,” he said, assuring her and heard his voice waver on the words. He was here, with her, in the most literal sense of the meaning. That too, was the best he could do.

When the connection made the ache in his nerves near unbearable, he gently pulled away, tried to smile with his eyes and led them to the door with a hand on her shoulder. The dogs followed and inside, they lingered in the hallway as Will unzipped his coat and hung it on the untidy rack, bulging with various winter coats and jackets. “Jesus, Will,” Molly uttered when he turned back towards her, and he noticed her eyes flashing to the skin of his bare throat. Oh. “What the hell is this?”

She stepped closer and rested careful fingers against his bruises, no longer glowing pink but still a wide range of purples and yellows in color, making him resemble a beaten banana. Her touch made him swallow down the urge to growl and he quickly flinched to feign pain, making her retract her hand from his skin. “It's healing,” he said, waving her worries away with a careless shrug before he brushed past her into the kitchen. He had to be more careful. He'd almost...

“You said he didn't hurt you,” Molly called from behind him, and he paused on the threshold. Yes, he had promised her Hannibal hadn't hurt him, physically, and it had been a lie. How would he bring himself to explain that any pain caused had not been unwanted, but welcomed? These bruises, however, had a different set of fingerprints attached to them. “No,” he said, turning towards her with one hand on the door frame. “No, this wasn't...” His hand pressed against his collarbone, hard enough to make him feel the sting of his damaged veins. “I got into an argument.” And that was very nearly not a lie, albeit an understatement.

Molly frowned, and her lips parted as she watched him with those innocent, bewildered eyes. “An argument?”, she repeated, taking her time with every vowel to emphasize the odd choice of words as she took a step towards him and placed her hands in the dip of her waist. “Did they put you with other prisoners?” The disbelief and outrage twisted beautifully on her glowing face and Will quickly shook his head to dispel her assumptions. “No, no,” he said, holding up both hands in defense as he cursed himself for not buttoning up completely. Not that it mattered, of course. She would have seen soon enough. 

“It was a guy, in the park.” Which was, again, true enough, and incomplete to the point of unfair. But he couldn't. He was tired and hurt and he wanted it to stop. He could see her lips pressed around another question, and that tight belt around his temples made his blood rush inside his ears like waves on the shore. He felt weak, he felt cold, he felt shame, and so very far away from the one person that could make it better. “Let's just...”, he grumbled with a weary sigh, and the exhaustion and exasperation must have shown bright and clear on his face, because her soft cheeks smoothened, and her shoulders dropped.

“OK,” she said, brushing past him into the kitchen as her hand grazed beneath his chin. Her eyes were gentle, her gaze soft, and full of misplaced understanding. “It's OK,” she assured, watching his red-rimmed eyes and deeming him that little lamb everyone now regarded him as. “Let's get you that coffee.” Will breathed in deep as she hurried to the machine, and dropped himself on one of the kitchen chairs around the square table. “Thank you,” he sighed, smiling up at his wife when she placed a steaming cup of black, black coffee before him. Dark like dirt, with a hint of earthly brown, just like Hannibal's eyes when he was irritated or tried to suppress his anger. He would squint around the iris and his nostrils would flinch up in a snarl. His lips would pull up over his sharp teeth and... Will dropped his head in his hands as Molly grabbed a chair and dragged it across the tiled floor to take her seat beside him. 

Stop.

**

Coffee was filled with Molly's easy chatter on every day life, and how she had kept herself occupied in the past two weeks without him. He enjoyed a conversation that only required him to hum, or nod, or smile as he sipped on the hot, soothing drink in his hand. It was obvious that she wanted him comfortable and calm, before she would undoubtedly start to nudge at the shapeless cloud that hung between them. For now, he enjoyed the crystal tones of her voice, and the layer-less words between them.

It was only during their afternoon walk with the dogs that she turned her head towards him and showed a depth behind the blue-gray of her eyes. “I want to talk about what happened,” she said, as they trod on the frozen dirt roads that led them to the woods behind the house, and the dogs romped happily ahead of them. And with that, she broke through the shallow wall he had tried so hard to keep standing. 

Will flinched when he watched Brent slip on a muddy puddle and coated his thick, white fur with brown, watery slush that would cake against the coat, once dry. Then, he turned to the eyes he felt pressing against the inside of his well-sheltered mind, and watched the pink flush on Molly's cheeks, caused by the cold weather and the uncertainty he knew lingered beneath. Easily detectable, would he look, but he couldn't take on her pain. There was no room left inside him for anything other than the anguish that pulled on his flesh and mind like a raging tow truck, trying to steer him back to where the pain would end. Not a day in, and he had already found himself on a deep, steep edge.

“I'm willing to wait until you are ready,” Molly said determinedly and he smiled a sigh as she looked at him with those big blue eyes, through her fringe of dirty blond hair. “I wish you would stop worrying,” he replied, squeezing her hand when she reached for his, and enduring the touch with forcefully pliant fingers. Ready, he would never be, and neither would she. “I'm just trying to figure out where we go from here, you know?”, she said, so very reasonable about their predicament, which was a trait he had always admired. Molly didn't speak her words like she was lost in the dark, flowy folds of her own ego. She didn't solve problems by influencing others, but worked hard, wore her heart on her sleeve and fought for what she thought was right. Never had they sparred or challenged or tried to upstage each other with flowery interpretations of the truth. Molly did not deceive, manipulate or lie. 

She smiled, and rubbed three fingers along his. “I want to know how to help you, and what you need from me for us to get past this,” she spoke, so beautifully honest, and he breathed in deep, smelling the rotting leaves beneath the runny snow. The scent reminded him of everything he was trying so hard to leave behind. “I wish I had all the answers to that,” he told her, and wanted so badly, here and now, to lift her spirit with a promise. But the painful truth, here, was that there was nothing he needed from her, but distance, forgiveness, understanding of what he had become. Never would they go back to the way things had been, no matter how hard he could push himself to try. He was an Omega now, and Hannibal was under his skin like the blood and breath of his very body. In a way, he always has been, but now it had become undeniable. Irreversible. Indestructible. Part of Will was still there, right now, in that glass prison, but there was no way he could tell her that without bringing her pain. And so he didn't. He waited, in vain, for an easier answer.

“You're an Omega,” she breathed, shaking her head in wonder as she smiled at him, pain hidden beneath her pupils, small against the bright and low winter sun. “Yes,” he told her, as he whistled back Smokey from the far end of the line. He wasn't ready to talk, but he knew she was battling her own insecurities and fears. “Did they give you medication, or any treatment that can help with your symptoms, or... heats?”, she pressed, holding onto his hand as he felt the nerves beneath the skin itch uncomfortably inside the grip. The sour sensation of overexercise came to mind, but never before had he felt that inside the muscles of his fingers. Before he answered her, he pulled himself free from her grip by feigning the need to brush back his long curls from his eyes.

“No,” he swallowed, as he watched the wet dirt stick to the bottom of his shoes. “There is no treatment for my situation.” He felt it when Molly looked at him, like a hot lamp on his temple, but focused instead on the frozen leaves crunching beneath his boots. It was oddly satisfying. “What does that mean?”, Molly asked the evident question and Will huffed, smiling tight as he shrugged his shoulders. What did it mean? Where could he possibly begin to explain her? Truth be told, he, himself, didn't know what it meant, but what he did know from the tight ache just below his throat, his chest, his groin, was that the maximum week of separation Hannibal had wished to limited him to might very well turn out to be too much.

“Will you get another heat, at some point, and just go back?”, Molly's voice rose to a pitch that made Will wince inside his thick scarf. At last he flashed his red-rimmed eyes to hers and swallowed. She was frustrated, naturally, and he wished more than ever he could smile, feel the warmth he should feel when looking at his wife, and make it better. He should tell her he would fight this, find a cure, endure the pain. Even get that brain surgery Jack had told him about. Anything to be with her. But he couldn't, because behind that thrumming, nauseating pull inside his throat, pulsed only one desire. One he very gradually came to recognize as not an alien addition, but something of his own since long before he and Molly ever met. He shook his head, and tried to find a deeper sense of grief for it. “My connection with Hannibal is... complicated,” he spoke half-truths as his throat fluttered around his mate's name. “Time will tell what that means, Molly.” He swallowed, feeling his mouth pull at the words as he watched her through heavy, stinging eyes. “I'm sorry.”

He could see the spasm on her lips as she reached to wrap her arm inside his. “You shouldn't be sorry,” she spoke, pressing the side of her face against his shoulder as they walked beneath the empty trees. Daisy was carrying a branch between her teeth that was larger than the little dog's body, and Will watched her happy, furry frame bouncing along the road. “I don't like the idea of you...”, Molly paused, but Will knew just what it was she didn't like the idea of. Of him, belonging to someone else. “But you are the victim in this, and I realize that.” She squeezed his arm with hers, as Will kept his eyes on the playing dogs ahead of them. “You don't deserve this and I will do whatever I can to either fix this or help you through it, OK?” Molly told him, her cheek against his upper arm, and beneath the layers of his clothes he felt the skin itch at the nearness of her warmth. 

“Molly...”, he breathed, trying to find his voice inside his tight throat, and heard the air breaking. “For better and for worse, right?”, she interrupted, rubbing his arm in a way to sooth him. “We'll work this out.” And they walked on, in silence. Peacefully, perhaps, for Molly, but Will felt like an open sore, probed by fingers until thoroughly infected. Without Hannibal, he felt vulnerable, as if without skin to cover the nerves, the bones, the veins.

“I bought fresh fish for dinner,” Molly said.

**

Dinner and dessert were easy affairs, where Molly chatted about Wally's reducing school grades, her mother's ulcer, and another dog someone was trying to find a home for, just a two hour drive away. Will listened, but there was no room inside his head for the words to settle, and it was right after his after-dinner Whiskey he excused himself to bed. “You should get some rest,” Molly agreed, and followed him up to the room. Climbing the stairs, Will wondered with sudden agitation if he would be allowed to take a piss all by himself. But no, he shouldn't... she had been worried, and alone, and he was here now, barely opening up. 

She fluffed his pillow, flattened his sheets and pulled out a nightshirt as he started to undress himself. “What is...?”, he suddenly heard her mumble behind him, and before he could turn, her hand was on his bare shoulder. “That's... That's a bite mark,” she spoke quietly. “A human bite mark.” Will sucked in a sharp breath as her fingertip rimmed around the wound, and he twitched his shoulder at the intrusion. “Yeah,” he said, without turning towards her to see the question in her eyes. 

Again, her fingers traced around the skin, and his shoulder jerked involuntarily at the contact. “Does it hurt?”, she asked, finally taking her hand away, and came to stand beside him. “No,” Will shook his head, guilt creeping up at him like a permanent second skin. “It just itches.” Molly stepped in front of him and reached out to cup his tense jaw. “What the hell have they done to you?”, she asked, a whisper as her sympathy shone like teardrops in her eyes. And Will should have cupped her hand, kissed her palm and told her everything was over now. But he only felt his resistance. No, to the gentle hand on his jaw. No, to the tearful pity in her eyes. No, to her fingers on Hannibal's mark. 

She watched him, and he wondered what she saw when she pulled back her hand and frowned deep lines of better understanding. He must have felt cold, beneath those lovely hands. “Was it him?”, she asked, a pale glow around her nose. Will wouldn't pretend, or insult her by asking. They both knew who she was referring to. “It was Hannibal,” he confirmed, eyes flashing down to the carpet beneath his bare toes. Molly stepped closer, and he watched her socked feet come into his line of vision. She didn't touch him, this time. She waited until he was brave enough to lift his head and look at her. “Are you still my Will?”, she asked, her eyes big and blue and he suppressed the urge to moan his misery out loud. There were so many things he could answer, but within the truth, none of them would bring them sleep tonight.

“Molly...”, he said, bringing his hand up to reach for hers. It felt odd. Like touching a dead body that once belonged to someone close. He loved her, still. He loved her like one might love a caged, wild animal. Only contained, out of reach, it was safe to feel affection. But outside, exposed, touched, smothered, that love turned to fear. That love turned to threat. “I'm still Will.” 

She didn't join him in bed, but went downstairs to clean up. That was what she told him, but he knew she, too, needed time to think. She was alone, even now he was here, and that thought should have been enough for him to follow her down and hold her, tell her he was with her and that they were going to make things right again.

Instead, he closed his eyes, tired in every inch of his body. He lay there, minutes, hours, and in the dark, there was a flicker of something familiar behind his eyes. A glass cell, a prison bed, white walls and rows and rows of books. There was the scent of winter fire and a brush of soft lips against his temple, before he fell deep into the darkness of his own mind. In sleep he dreamed of nothing, but he stirred beneath the blankets when a new scent drifted from the cracked window. Spices. Smoke and poison. Eighteen layers of Chinese hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was younger and I liked someone (and really wanted them to like me back) I always got super awkward and giddy and I wouldn't be sure what to do with myself, so I would start doing annoying things like poking or nudging them until they got seriously sick of me. Why? I don't know, but considered yourself poked! ^.^
> 
> I know, poor Molly and poor Will. There is some serious communication blockage in this chapter and it is Will's fault. He's holding on so tight to something familiar in this crazy mess, because what would he be without it? Hannibal's? That sure is a dangerous plunge! :-P  
> Love you guys! <3


	30. Hannibal's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had not planned this little snippet at all! In fact, I wrote it about half an hour ago! ^.^ Sweet Lady_Darkness asked me in her comment for a chapter from Hannibal's POV and I had honestly never considered it. Full access to Hannibal's mind would leave too little to the imagination, story wise :-P But I was intrigued, inspired, and I love to know what people enjoy and answer to that! And of course I miss Hannibal, and I know some people are curious about the way he feels about the separation. So here is a little snippet! Enough to know his pain, but not his mind :-P Love you guys!

**Hannibal's POV**

Eyes on the wall. Eyes on the wall. Eyes on that little, black dot on the wall. 

Tick, tick, tick, said the antique grandfathers clock inside his mind, shaped and sized to the pettiest detail as the one that had stood in the foyer of his childhood home. One second at a time, time ticked away, and the clicking of the clock's hand matched the steady stream of blood, dripping on the floor.

Eyes on the wall. Eyes on the wall. Eyes on that little, black dot on the wall. 

Whenever the hour struck, the clock echoed inside him like a gong, and emphasized the hollowness, the empty, wasted darkness within the cage of his bones. His heart throbbed weakly, evidently finding no meaning or purpose to pump his blood through the chambers, filling and emptying into the veins with nothing but a wet cough.

Eyes on the wall. Eyes on the wall. KEEP your eyes on that little, black dot on the wall. 

The Alpha had been pushed to the corner of his mind and obeyed the command to lie low, endure, wait, suffer. His yellow eyes were dull in his skull, and his tail twitched on the floor of Hannibal's mind. 

Don't move. Don't think. Don't feel. 

Eyes on the wall.

With attention, it would expand within him, and it would outgrow its shell until everything would splash to the floor and onto his feet. It would drip like blood and entrails, and it would feel ripped from his chest. There, where he had once felt and lived and breathed, had now grown a big, black beast with claws the size of trees. 

_He might not come back._  
Sharp nails inside his belly.

 _He might stay with her._  
Razors to his lungs.

 _He might be able to live without you._  
Bloody claws along his throat.

The pain was monstrous. Like watching your baby sister being ripped to shreds before your eyes.

No. Eyes on the wall. Eyes on the wall. 

Keep everything tight, pulled in, bound and hidden. Stay numb, stay quiet, stay very, very still. Hold your breath, don't blink, don't exist. 

He'd done it before.

He had to, because if anything poured out, now, nothing would stop him but a bullet in his brain. A bullet that would gladly be given. And death couldn't come now. Not before he knew.

“Hannibal?”

He kept his eyes on the wall.

“Do you want treatment for that?”

He kept his eyes on the wall.

“No thank you, Alana.”

His hand was slippery, sticky, where his sharp nails pushed deep inside his palm. The blood seeped between his clenched fist onto the prison floor. The cuts were deep, his nails dirty, but the pain was a welcome stabilizer between mind and body.

“Do you need anything else?”

Eyes on the wall. Her voice could have been a welcome distraction, but similarly, it could pull him down the rabbit-hole, right into the clouds of his memory.

“No thank you, Alana.”

She left. She knew better than to poke at him. 

Eyes on the wall, listen to the clock, feel the scrape of your nail against the bones in your hand. Don't think, don't think, don't think of anything but the dot on the wall, the clock in your head, the pain of the bared bones in your hand.

Dinner would be brought and taken away. Breakfast would be the same. By noon tomorrow, he would be asked to drink something, and he would. He would fall asleep, narcotized by medication they deemed necessary, and when he would wake, all the furniture but the bed would be taken. Fear, for him to harm himself, or others.

It had been like that before.

Soon, he would have to eat, shower, breathe. He would have to live, and believe he would come back. 

But for now it was easier to just keep his eyes on that little, black dot on the wall.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hannibal,” he said again, clearer, louder and watched his mate's ears peak behind his own closed lids, watching the Alpha search for him with open eyes. Hannibal's gaze brushed him with an empty stare, not seeing the Omega before him as he searched, in vain, in the world before the veil. “Hannibal,” Will cried out, frantically searching inside himself for the directions he could give the Alpha on where to find him. But Hannibal didn't need that. Hannibal blinked, before his lips jerked up in a smile. The Alpha understood, Will realized, so much better than he ever could, the possibilities between them.

Will woke in his own bed, in his own room, and he was alone. Molly's side of the bed was warm, still, and the dip of her weight in the mattress was visible on the fitted sheet, but her beige robe was missing from the hook on the door, and from downstairs he could hear the clangs of pans and plates being used. Breakfast. She was making him breakfast. 

He turned himself on his back and watched the spotless, sand-colored ceiling as he stretched his body beneath the soft, warm sheets, praising the comfortable box-spring over any cheap motel or prison bed. His muscles sang gratefully for the quality mattress, that had treated his body with so much more compassion than whatever else he had been forced to rest himself on these past weeks. Hannibal, he thought with sudden flash of hot cheeks, not included.

Most of his night had been restful and dreamless, up to the point of early morning where his pressing bladder had forced him to pad barefoot to the bathroom. After returning and sliding carefully between the sheets to avoid disturbing the peaceful expression on his wife's lovely features, he had closed his eyes and lingered in the shadows of reality. It was the state of sleep that only breached the surface of the mind, and he had floated on the waves of consciousness. There, he had found himself staring at his Alpha's face, hidden in darkness. Resting on his prison bed, with eyes closed and silver hair tousled. The image had buzzed in and out behind his lids, like a flickering, zooming tube of fluorescent light, and it wasn't until the dark sky had already shown the lighter rim of blue at the horizon, that Hannibal's face darkened in the lines, fading and sinking into the depths beneath the surface of his mind.

The alarm by his bed now showed him a bright red 07:58, and his heavy legs found their way over the edge of the mattress. Fuck. He rubbed his temples with his fingers and took a deep, calming breath before rising to his feet. Yes, fuck. He was rested, he was fed, he was warm and cared for, without any real injuries causing him discomfort. But inside, the insisting pull on his core, his guts and bones, was harsh and cruel and maddeningly impatient as it dug inside his flesh like sharp ropes trying to slice through pink intestines. It burned him, it hurt, almost as much as the howling, screeching Omega in the attic made his skull throb beneath his skin like a bee sting, as the beast ripped further into the flesh of his own, bloody paws.

It was bad. Worse, even, than last time. Maybe it was the distance, maybe the company, or maybe it was due to the connection that had been allowed to grow outside the days of heat. But he already felt weak, starving, as his skin crawled to be touched, his bones to be held, his mind to be understood, soothed, indulged. 

Will refused to look in the mirror when he undressed himself in the bathroom, and twisted the hot water of the shower open as far as it would go, adding only half a turn of blue. When steam rose up to fog the room, he climbed into the peach colored bathtub, closed the flower-patterned shower curtain, and positioned himself head-first into the powerful, wonderful, caressing stream. “Ughh,” he moaned through parted lips as he placed both his hands against the tiled wall and closed his eyes while the water beat down on his torso and back. A good shower, that too had been a long time coming.

He kept his eyes closed as he stood in place and dropped his chin to his sternum as the exhaustion pulled him down, down, and further back into his own mind. He should have washed his hair and used one of the many bottles of shower gel, but he couldn't make himself move as the rain fell from the large, round shower head above him, and tried to bring life to his stiff frozen muscles. He was home. This was his home. And everything here was hard, and raw and too bright for him to look at. And everything here was feeble, and fragile and too shapeless for him to understand. He could have cried, here, beneath the water that would disguise any evidence of tears, but he couldn't even muster up that kind of grief anymore. Instead, he let the hot water sooth him into nothingness as he tried so very hard not to feel, or think, by letting his mind drift into a safe familiar black.

A flicker of light behind his closed eyes made him jump, and his lashes fluttered as he pulled his head from the stream with a gasp that made him swallow water. He was certain he had seen something, clear and real, inside the dark walls of his empty mind. A flash of color, and sound, and even scent. It hadn't been a thought, no, it hadn't been a dream. Not even a memory. He hadn't dozed off in the shower, no, he had seen it, observed it, as if watching the world through plastic goggles. And the image was familiar. Creme-colored tiles, glass shower walls, wet, gray hair on a bare, broad chest. Will breathed in deep and blinked the water from his lashes as his eyes moved along the walls around him. 

No, no, it hadn't even been a fantasy, it hadn't been an idea. He had heard the water splashing against the tiles, he had smelled the soap and the winter fire of Hannibal's skin, and all of it had crept into his senses as real as it would have, had he been standing in the prison shower again. “Shit.” He pressed his back to the wall as the water beat against his torso, breathed in the hot steam, and closed his eyes again. It was harder this time, to find the empty darkness inside him, and his heart thumped wild inside his chest as his eyes moved within his sockets, searched beneath the darkness. Hannibal. 

Within a minute, the image came back into his mind, and this time he didn't open his eyes again. This time, he watched his mate, because he knew what he saw before him was real, and happening right now. Hannibal was in the shower, this very moment, in his prison shower, at Baltimore hospital, and Will moved his eyes behind closed lids to take in the scene inside his head. He wondered if his mind had reached out and touched what it had needed most, beyond his own control, and he breathed deeply through his nose as he watched his mate, close and wet and bare before him. He could see his Alpha's naked back, as he stood turned towards the spray to let the water run over his bent head and silver hair. Soap slid down the glistering skin and Will's lips parted as his eyes traveled along strong shoulders, a defined spine and the dip of the slender waist. Then followed the swell of the very well-formed curve of his Alpha's ass, muscular, round and smoothly soft in the same instant, and as Will watched the water and soap sliding in between the crease of his mate's flawless shape, his body began to flush and stir and redirect the blood flow in response to the image. 

_No, no, don't. Fucking don't._

But Will breathed hard through his open lips as his eyes settled faithfully on Hannibal's ass, and he felt the blood rise to his face when he was suddenly overthrown by a gripping desire to reach out and cup one of the full, firm cheeks. He never had the opportunity before to study Hannibal's physique with this much attention, but that didn't mean he hadn't felt the longing to explore his mate with unlimited access and control. Oh yes, Will had felt the desire to taste his mate, to make the dominant Alpha surrender to him with his hands and mouth until he begged and cried undignified for release. He had fantasized, more than once, about running his tongue over the tight, pink pucker of Hannibal's opening, pushing his cheeks apart with his hands and opening him up until...

Will almost jumped when Hannibal turned around, and widened his eyes beneath his closed lids when he came face to face with his Alpha's handsome, flushed features. His eyes were closed, his lips parted, and Will was helpless against the need to lower his gaze over those pink, peaked nipples, that strong, soft stomach, that trail of silver hair that dipped down from his bellybutton all the way to... Oh. God. Oh Jesus. Will heard his own breath loud and raspy in his ears as he witnessed the enlarged, swollen, angry red cock that sprung from between his mate's strong legs and rested heavily in Hannibal open fists. Fingers massaged over the bulbous head as the Alpha pumped his own, large erection in a slow, agonizing rhythm, with his head thrown back against the shower stream and his eyes closed in pure pleasure and concentration. 

Will hadn't even touched himself, but watching the muscles flex beneath Hannibal's belly and seeing those fingers rub the foreskin along the leaking slit, made him stand tall and hard. He stared at his mate's pleasure, and heard Hannibal quietly moaning beneath his ragged breath as he touched the thick, long shaft with his broad hand, unable to reach all the way around himself. Fuck. Will was trying, he really was, but all he could manage to think now was that the image before him was immensely, enormously... hot.

He reached for his own filled cock between his legs, smaller in size but already flushed and painfully hard in his hand as he groaned deep in his throat as he stroked the sensitive flesh with his eyes glued to the sight before him. God, how had he managed to fit all that inside his body? Hannibal's eyelids fluttered in his skull and oh yes, oh god yes, Will rubbed over the hot pink skin of the leaking head in his fist as he flashed his widened pupils from Hannibal's closed eyes, his teeth in his bottom lip, to those teasing fingers that jerked around his swollen Alpha cock. The Omega was hooked, mesmerized by the beauty, and felt his body swaying in the rhythm of both their fingers as he matched his mate's cruel pace. His eyes frenzied over every dip and twist of his mate's exquisite form as he squeezed his fingers over the head of his leaking cock, lost within the moment, until he heard the Alpha moan from between those bitten, swollen lips. 

“Will.”

His name. His fucking name. Oh Jesus, Will grasped his erection tight in his fist as he moaned deep within his own throat and felt his balls tighten, already pushing for release. “Hannibal,” he gasped his response, thumbing the slit and spreading the gathered liquid around the swollen head, so close, so good, so... Oh. Will froze when he watched the Alpha's eyes shoot open the moment his name fell from Will's lips, and the Omega felt his own heart thrumming in his chest as he heard the low growl that rose from Hannibal's chest. His mate dropped his hand from his heavy cock and Will's breath stuttered violently as he watched his mate's tiger eyes dash manically around the room. He had heard. Hannibal had heard him. The Omega's skin tightened up at the sight of his bewildered mate, as his hand squeezed motionless around his own throbbing shaft. Were they really here, together? Were they...

“Hannibal,” he said again, clearer, louder and watched his mate's ears peak behind his own closed lids, watching the Alpha search for him with open eyes. Hannibal's gaze brushed him with an empty stare, not seeing the Omega before him as he searched, in vain, in the world before the veil. “Hannibal,” Will cried out, frantically searching inside himself for the directions he could give the Alpha on where to find him. But Hannibal didn't need that. Hannibal blinked, before his lips jerked up in a smile. The Alpha understood, Will realized, so much better than he ever could, the possibilities between them. 

He watched in astonishment as his mate breathed in deep, connected the dots in his head, and all tension left his body. He closed his eyes as his head tilted back against the stream, falling into his own mind, his own darkness, behind the veil of their connection. When he opened them, it was within their own made realm, and it looked as if his pupils shone through the closed eyelids onto his Omega before him. He had found Will, inside himself, with a solidness and speed that had Will baffled.

“Will,” Hannibal said, calm and pleasant, if not for the little quiver that traveled through his voice as he looked straight into his Omega's eyes. Will's breath stuttered, gaping at his mate as Hannibal took a step towards him and reached out to touch. “Ooh,” Will gasped when the fingers brushed his bare chest, with an off, phantom-like sensation that sprung from within himself. He felt it, but it was the memory or the imagination of what it would feel like, that brought the connection to life. “Can you see me?”, Hannibal asked him, a soft stutter in his breath as his fingers lingered on Will's naked torso, and even now, like this, it was enough to make Will's muscles tremble with desire.

“I see you,” he breathed his conformation and Hannibal smiled his sharp fangs bare as he stepped close enough to brush his hand down Will's quivering stomach, his touch like a gust of wind against the wet, naked skin. “Fuck,” Will whispered as he reached his own hand to stroke across one of his Alpha's tightened nipples, and watched Hannibal hiss at the contact that only existed inside their minds.

“Fuck,” Will cursed again as his cock hardened to the point of unbearable, and he reached for himself with his own, solid hand to ease the ache of his arousal. “Yes,” Hannibal approved with an abandoned groan and he watched the Omega stroking along his own erection before he, too, returned his touch to the solid weight of the pulsing cock against his abdomen. Like this, awake and drifting in between worlds, their connection was fragile and limited, but their own hands offered real friction as they stared at each other's naked, aroused bodies in the hot, wet shower. Both men groaned with hungry eyes and flushed skin as their desire overtook them, touching themselves to the living, breathing image of the other. 

“Touch yourself,” Hannibal growled, fangs sharp and eyes nothing but slits as he pumped himself with a twist of his wrist around the head, while his free hand cupped the darker skin of his tightened balls against his body. Will mimicked the specific way his mate stroked the swollen, purple flesh of the head, knowing exactly what Hannibal wished to see him do. Without missing a beat, he brought two fingers to his own lips and slid them inside his mouth to lick along the already soaked digits. “Will,” the Alpha sighed, and growled low in his belly when his mate brought the spit-coated fingers around his body and pushed them both, simultaneously inside his hole. 

“Fuck. Ooh God.” He was already so wet with his own slick, and the slide in was tight but smooth and he groaned his pleasure when his crooked his fingers rubbed experimentally against the sensitive bundle of nerves. Hannibal's lips parted in arousal as he watched his mate's fingers disappear entirely inside his slender body. “Just like that,” he moaned, lost inside Will's skull as both their hands worked along their own swollen, blood-filled cocks, their bodies tightening and begging for release. Will surrendered to the intensity of the pleasure he evoked by working blunt fingers against his own throbbing prostate. He was still new to the angle, to the action, but submitted completely to the way it made his nerves sing and his balls pulse tight against his body.

“Fuck, Hannibal,” he sobbed, begged, whimpered into his own mind as he kept his eyes glued on Hannibal's fluttering muscles beneath the beautiful skin. The leaking, pulsing cock inside his mate's hand, not big enough to fit the girth and length, drove a maddening heat through Will's loins that caused his muscles to spasm around his own, slick fingers. “Oooh, ooh God,” he cried helplessly at the sight, feeling the pleasure from his toes to the roots of his teeth as he stroked along the inside of his body and pulled the skin around his dick with an upwards twist of his wrist. “Will,” Hannibal moaned, equally lost with eyes deeply entranced on every angle of his aroused Omega. “Let go.”

The words were not spoken as a command, but Will rubbed pressing fingers over the head of his cock as his hand stroked firmly against the inside of his tight, slick entrance, and all was lost. “Hannibal,” he whimpered wild and tight as he felt his ass clenching hard around his own fingers while his release spurted plentifully over his frantic hand and up against his trembling belly. “Hannibal. Hannibal.” The sensation was one of falling into the depths of dark, dark oblivion and bliss, but where he would have normally closed his eyes to give himself to the black realm of pleasure, he now kept them glued to the ecstasy on his mate's beautiful features. Hannibal growled, fluttered his lashes and, as his muscles spasmed violently beneath the skin, released a flowing stream of pearly white semen over his own clenching fist. “Yes, God yes,” Will hissed at the sight, his own, painfully sensitive cock spasming helplessly inside his grip. His mate was flushed, trembling, beautiful in his naked form and stained with his own release and, fuck, all Will wanted now was....

“French toast?”

Will's eyes blew wide open and suddenly, he was in his own bathroom, under the streaming shower, palming his own, softening cock inside his hand as a load of sperm coated his fingers and belly in sticky, clingy ropes. Knuckled raps on the other side of the locked bathroom door. “Will?”, he heard Molly's voice coming from the other side, and he took a quick gasp of breath as he dove back under the full spray.

“Y-yes?”, he stuttered as the hot water beat against his face, and the semen on his belly became granular under his fingers. “Do you want French toast?”, she asked again through the door, and Will brushed a frantic hand over his skin to rid himself of the evidence of his release. “Eh... yeah. Yeah”, he replied, not quite sure what he was agreeing to in the moment, but feeling relief and guilt washing over him with similar pressure when he heard her footsteps dying away in the hallway, as she went down the stairs.

Oh, oh, oh, fuck.

He released a long, hard breath and knew he would have to get out of the shower soon to join his wife for breakfast. But for now, all he could manage was to press his head against the tiles on the wall before him and curse, curse, curse. “Goddammit.”

**

To avoid any real conversation, Will went along quite enthusiastically when Molly suggested going into town, and shop for groceries at the local market. They could have walked the distance in less than thirty minutes, but Will feared what that time would bring up between them, and offered to drive. She seemed lifted, pleased by his willingness to continue their everyday lives' activities, and he found himself wishing that every breath he took in her presence, would stop feeling like a lie. 

“What do you feel like?”, Molly asked, referring to tonight's dinner as her eyes roamed over the fresh vegetables and fruits, stalled out to be admired and bought. Will knew he could shrug, or tell her he wouldn't be hungry anyway. He could say he could barely taste anything, ever since he had stepped aboard that plane. But he knew it would make her happy if he asked for her food and allowed her to provide and nurture. “You know I love your lamb chops,” he smiled, offering whatever he had left to offer as he watched her happy smile stretch wide over her teeth. “Are you talking dirty to me?”, she teased, biting playfully into her lip as she nudged his shoulder with hers. “In public?” The feigned shock on her lively face was adorable, and the flirtatious joking so familiar between them. He chuckled as his stomach clenched tight, trying to enjoy the carefree moment, without feeling the drag of heavy weights around his neck.

He waited beside her as she ordered the meat, and let his eyes glide over the blood that pooled beneath a pile of steaks. Hannibal wouldn't even touch these, he knew. Hannibal would want a specific cut, a specific type of animal, fresh, thick, exactly right for some outrageously complicated dish. His lips twitched at the memories of all the exquisite dining experiences they had shared, remembering only after the chops had been tucked away in the shopping bag, that most of that meat had probably been human.

Molly chatted away beside him about potatoes, onions, some kind of yellow carrots, and he followed her mindlessly, nodding his approval when she pointed out ingredients and carried her bags as she made her purchases. This wasn't much different from what such a visit would normally look like, he realized, packing three red peppers on top of the other groceries. He had never engaged much during their shopping trips, as crowded places and fast decision making were not things he could combine. Molly had never seen any different from him, and he allowed himself to enjoy the permitted silence as he followed after his wife like a passive, domesticated husband.

“Molly?”, a high-pitched voice blared across the square, and before Will could register the source, Molly was pulled aside and entirely claimed by a woman he recognized as one of her yoga friends. This one was the loud, chatty one with dark brown hair and the kind of Latina curves that almost had her rip those yoga pants. Not that he had looked, of course, but it had been hard to miss. “Hun, I love your new coat. Is the this the one you've been talking about?”, the woman said with the enthusiasm of a sorority girl, as she pulled back to size up Molly's long, beige coat. Was that new? Had he seen it before? Was he supposed to have noticed these things?

“Thanks, Jessica. It is,” Molly beamed at her friend's compliment before showing her the ruby red lining by undoing two of the buttons. It was an expensive coat. He should have noticed. “And Will, how good to see you out and about,” Jessica turned towards him with a radiant smile that had him taking a hesitant step back. “Molly told me you've been sick.” She said, swiping her dark brown gaze across his face and messy curls. “Oh yes,” She said, pursing painted lips, “That flu must have hit you hard, love. You look like you've seen death.” Will huffed a quick chuckle as Molly joined his side, linking her arm through his as she smiled her teeth bare with a nervous giggle. “He does, doesn't he?”, she humored Jessica, who was kind enough to bring the conversation back to her own life, rattling about her husband, Mario, who had apparently nearly died last year in a horrible chicken pocks tragedy. 

Will was quick to tune out, but as he stared at the worn shoes on his feet, he felt a cold prickle against the back of his neck. A gust of wind, or intuition. He turned his head, but in the masses of people walking and meeting in all kinds of direction, it was impossible to spot anything out of the ordinary, or too familiar. He turned back, but the uneasy tickle remained, and this time he felt eyes sharp enough to slice trough his skin traveling along his neck. Again, he turned his head, but the attempt to find the source remained fruitless. The sensation of biting fire-ants on his neck, however, didn't fade. Not even when he rubbed the skin with his own icy fingers.

“Am I boring you, Will?”, Jessica's sneer shook him out of his trance as he turned back to the woman before him. In the corner of his eye, he watched Molly raising an eyebrow at both him and her friend, similarly caught off guard by the exchange. “What?”, he blurted, before his nose picked up on a spicy, eastern scent. Tiger balm, pepper seeds, the bitter taste of dandelion. “Am I boring you?”, the feisty brunette repeated daringly as she placed a hand on her wide hip. Will blinked, swallowed, and tasted bitter heat in the back of his throat. “I don't know, Jessica.” He answered her distractedly, as his eyes flashed around the crowded square. “I wasn't paying attention.”

Molly was still giggling when they returned to the car, highly amused by her yoga friend's outrage. Will laughed along, pleased to see her smile, but never did his eyes stop searching for the source of the biting heat in his neck, and the burn on his tongue. It wasn't until they had stepped into the car and drove onto their frozen dirt road, that the feeling finally left him completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all the love I got for the little Hannibal POV bit I posted earlier this week! It was a spur of the moment kind of thing and I had no idea how it would be received, so thank you so so so much for giving me so much extra joy and warmth for something so short! I hope to make you guys a little bit happier with this little Hannigram moment ^.^ Hannibal must have been happy he finally got up to take that shower :-P And he finally took notice of the spicy scent following him around! (And I'm not talking about those sweaty armpits! :-P) All my love! <3


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her lips found his neck, and it was wrong. So wrong, he had to do everything in his power to suppress the urge to snap his teeth at her for touching such intimate, vulnerable territory. Of course he had known this might happen, and of course he had considered his own actions within that scenario. But he had thought he could at least try, close his eyes, let it happen. Maybe it wouldn't be that strange, or unwanted at all.
> 
> Never had he anticipated his mind and body would become aggressive under her loving touches. Or the downright refusal to perform. Never had he thought he would feel such aversion towards his own, sweet Molly. “Mmm, God, I've missed you,” she breathed against his ear as her hand dipped beneath the covers, and trailed along his t-shirt covered chest. He managed a stuttering gasp in response and she smirked flirtatiously, confusing his distress for boyish lust.

The real problems started that evening when Molly joined him in their bed. Dinner had been uncomplicatedly pleasant, and wine Hannibal wouldn't even consider bringing to his nose had flowed freely until both their cheeks glowed a rosy pink. After the dogs' last evening walk, Will had kissed her on the cheek and said goodnight, but as he settled himself on the mattress he'd felt her sliding beneath the covers beside him. In that moment, he had realized what the easy flow of wine and laughter had brewed between them, and inwards, he felt the tight dread of watching the train approach without being able to move. 

He had not dared to turn his back to her and kept his eyes glued to the ceiling when he felt her turn to him, one hand supporting her chin. A finger had brushed at his hair, his cheek, his jaw, before she had leaned in and kissed him on his temple. 

_No. Please, god no._

The contact ached like a bug beneath the skin and Will fought not to react in a manner that would hurt her. He had smiled, tired and stiff, but his lips had quickly dropped when her mouth returned, pressing against the corner of his. Will didn't turn towards her, he didn't move or meet her eyes. He just breathed, deep and slow, as he fought to keep his mind clear, and his body steady. 

The Omega in him gnawed so hard on the chains on the attic door, its gums started to bleed over its fangs, and every inch of Will's body twitched with controlled resistance. 

_It wasn't right. It just wasn't right._

Her lips found his neck, and it was wrong. So wrong, he had to do everything in his power to suppress the urge to snap his teeth at her for touching such intimate, vulnerable territory. Of course he had known this might happen, and of course he had considered his own actions within that scenario. But he had thought he could at least try, close his eyes, let it happen. Maybe it wouldn't be that strange, or unwanted at all.

Never had he anticipated his mind and body would become aggressive under her loving touches. Or the downright refusal to perform. Never had he thought he would feel such aversion towards his own, sweet Molly. “Mmm, God, I've missed you,” she breathed against his ear as her hand dipped beneath the covers, and trailed along his t-shirt covered chest. He managed a stuttering gasp in response and she smirked flirtatiously, confusing his distress for boyish lust.

_No. No, no, no._

Sweat poured down his forehead as her hand traveled lower, down his stomach, over his abdomen, until her fingers dipped beneath the waistband of his boxers.

_No._

Ocean eyes flashed pitch black in side his mind, as the Omega's bloody teeth snapped against the squishy, pink flesh of the walls of his brain.

”NO.” Will's hand shot down to grab her wrist and pulled her touch away from his skin with a sharp jerk of his arm. “No,” he repeated, hoarse and out of breath, wide eyes full of spilling panic. This couldn't happen. Everything in him screamed it like a thousand banshees had been released inside his fragile, hollow skull. _Not this, not her, not there, not that._

Her hand was in his as he brought it up between them and he looked straight into her startled eyes. “Molly...”, he breathed brokenly, feeling the tightness in his chest squeezing all the air from his lungs. “...I can't. I can't.”

He watched her staring at him with those round, wet eyes that reflected the table lamp light like a hundred burning candles, before she allowed their linked fingers to gently separate and sat up against the headboard with a deep, stuttering inhale. He wished to feel the need to reach for her, but didn't when the feeling never came. “I'm so sorry”, Will whispered at the lost look in her eyes that tugged at his heart. She looked so lovely in her red, oversized nightshirt, her loose, straight, blond hair that framed her pretty, round face. She was all soft, sweet, woman, with that spark of life and that fiery passion for everything right. And then she said; “It's OK. _I'm_ sorry...”, and only made it that much harder.

Will propped himself up on his elbows, as he turned his head to look at her. “No,” he said, shaking his head as he swallowed, and felt his throat flutter in the process. “It's just...”, he started, his eyes large as he breathed one long, deep sigh and felt his cheeks burning hot and bright on his face. Where to begin, he had no idea. In his head, he had practiced all the possible conversations a dozen, dozen times, but here and now, everything he could say was either a lie, or something that would hurt her. 

Because it wasn't 'just' anything. And it never had been.

Hannibal had told him many times already that Will shunned making hard decisions. Will didn't want the responsibility. Will couldn't afford to play the part of the wolf, relying still on his reputation as the loyal, obedient dog. Why would he place himself in that position, when Hannibal already played the beast so perfectly, good enough for the both of them?

Molly's finger hooked on the hem of her shirt as she drew her bare legs up to her chest. “You don't have to explain anything,” she said, and the smile around her lips hurt them both. He wished, for once, that she would just scream her pain at him, yell and curse and hit him with a flat hand across the cheek with enough force to make it sting. He reached to touch her bare ankle, and his stomach churned sourly at the contact of skin while her eyes shone warmly at his effort. “It's...”, he choked, failing again to find any words as he pressed his fingers deeper into her warm skin. Determination and anger, as the ache of the contact made his clenched teeth throb inside his mouth. “Yeah,” Molly said, pressing her lips together as she caressed his fingers with hers. Will allowed the ache to spread like wildfire, until the veins in his arms tightened uncomfortably. 

Bonded to his mate, things wouldn't be this bad, this intense, Dr. Hammings had told him. Bonded, the distance and the contact would be an easier experience. But bonding with his mate was irreversible, a life-lasting connection, and there would be no place for Molly in it. If he chose to bond, he would be choosing Hannibal, only Hannibal, and it would be forever.

Will turned his eyes back to the ceiling as Molly pulled the sheets over her exposed legs. His fingers released her ankle, and life streamed back into his veins as she sniffled into the semi-darkness; her back against the headboard, his head on the pillow beside her. “I just... I've got so much to ask you and I don't know where to start,” she confessed, a rawness to her words, as if she finally allowed herself to lift the veil she had used to spare him, hiding her own concerns. Will sucked his upper lip between his lower teeth before he released it with a slight _pop_. “I know,” he swallowed, and felt like the lowest form of life when all he could do was wish for her to stop this, leave him be, go to sleep. 

So he could close his eyes and maybe try to reach a place he had been thinking about ever since this morning. 

No. Ever since he'd left.

But Molly pulled the blankets up to her chin, and hardly ever had he seen her look this vulnerable. “I know you had sex with someone else during your heat, but I...” Will heard her sigh, struggling for what to say, or to ask. A search for questions to which she truly wanted an answer. “Do you – do you really not remember any of it? Or are you saying that to spare me?”, she then asked, and Will felt his face tighten from the misery that pulled at his muscles. _God_. He had known she had her doubts from the moment he told her the lie. Had he not liked her for her motherly intuition, after all?

“Molly...”, he practically whimpered, undignified, and wondered if he should break away from the conversation entirely. Ever since he had left Baltimore, a nauseating ailment had settled in his nerves, never allowing him to forget that he was misplacing himself. 

Did he have to hurt her with the truth, if there was nothing left to mend? But that thought was unexpected, unwanted, terrifying, not allowed to exist within him. He had to fight. He had to....

“I don't want you to have to deal with this all by yourself,” Molly said, touching his shoulder as a plea bled through her voice and Will closed his eyes, squinting the lids from the pain moving through him as if caught in his bloodstream. And it ached unbearably, needfully, for something unjustifiable. 

Molly's hand ran over his damp forehead, touching him, but not feeling the hazard that lingered beneath the smooth skin. “Don't pull away from me now,” her voice whispered, needing, pulling, making guilt drip hot on an already open sore. “I don't know how”, he confessed, pressing palms to his sockets as he tried to quell the noise from within. The roaring, scratching Omega that lay bloody and weakened on the damaged attic floor, the smooth tones of his Alpha's voice that bounced against his skull like the unintelligible hum of an echo...

“Be honest”, Molly said. She didn't beg him. She had her dignity. But the message was clear, and the request not to be denied. Fingers brushed his hair and Will hid the snarl around his nose with his covering hands as Molly's touch slid to the back of his neck. “There is nothing for you to be ashamed of.” Her words made him huff into his own palms, and the rage that clawed up his windpipe was directed at no one but himself. He had sex with Hannibal outside of his heat. He had begged Hannibal to fuck him, to bite him, to bond with him, because he had wanted it more than anything else, and because he was a coward. He had lied to his wife, who deserved only happiness after all she'd been through. He had so much to be ashamed of.

“You told me your heat was a haze...”, Molly tried again, encouraging him to add to the conversation, and with a jerk of his head, Will sat up against the headboard. “My heat was a haze...”, he repeated, taking a deep breath to calm himself as he turned towards his wife, and forced himself to look her in the eyes. She asked, she pressed and lingered, because she knew. Not nearly the truth, but enough to understand there was more. He watched her eyes through blond bangs, knowing he shouldn't treat her like the fool she wasn't. He took a breath, and felt his lips tremble against the stream of air.  
“But I do remember... some of it, yes.” His confession was fragile, and Molly didn't blink until the rim of her eyes turned dry against her lashes. It wasn't nearly everything he ought to give her, as she deserved to be given. It was a peek behind the curtain, a toe in the water, only, because he knew that beyond that point lay nothing but destruction. Permanent destruction. Permanent change. He didn't dare to breach it.

Molly's arms wrapped around her blanked-clad knees. “You lied,” she said, after a brief moment of silence as her lips pressed into a tight smile. He had lied. He had told her he remembered nothing. The lie now seemed, in comparison to everything else, not as big as it once was. He realized that to her, without that comparison, it was bigger. “That's new.” She hugged her knees close to her chest as she looked at him with longing, melancholy. “I hope it's new.”

Will licked nervously at his lips as his fingers tangled in his own hair. “Molly...”, he said again, but she shook her head, always too good, and too pure to understand him, or allow him to be blamed. “I'm not mad, Will,” she said. “But you can't shut me out.” Their eyes met, and Will honestly missed those days were Molly believed to know all of him. Where she looked at him, watched the surface and deemed the picture complete. He also missed the moments where Hannibal would look at him, just once, and see better than he, himself what filth and weakness crawled behind his skin. “We can't let it come between us,” Molly whispered, resting her chin on her knees as she looked at him with those round, shiny orbs. “I don't want to let it.”

He watched her, and thought she looked younger. Vulnerable. Not the woman he married, and maybe, after all this, she would never be that woman again. “I don't want to cause you pain,” he croaked to her emotional plea, and realized he didn't even know what that meant anymore. What it would mean to continue lying, to stay. He couldn't reach deep enough to find truth in the chaos of his mind.

“There was sex,” Molly broke through his haze like a sledge hammer, and his shoulders jerked at the words penetrating his ears.  
“Yes,” he breathed, stiff and weak.  
“Lots of it,” Molly continued, and Will felt his throat tighten as his nails pushed into his pillow.  
“Yes,” he confirmed again, but kept his gaze on his knees and his lip between his teeth.  
“With Hannibal,” Molly spoke, her voice strained around the name and Will felt as if a bucket of ice water had been splashed against his abdomen. Fuck.  
“Yes, Molly,” he bit, feeling his whole body tightening in strained tension and pain at the mention of his absent mate. “You know all of this.”

He hoped he hadn't sounded as catty as he did to his own ears, but he felt poked and bruised a little more every time she opened her mouth. “What was that like for you?”, she pressed, and he had to press fingers to his lips to keep himself from groaning. He knew she thought he was traumatized by damaging, abusive experiences he just couldn't get off his chest. It was sickening, to think how he had done nothing to convince her that the opposite was true. And the pushing and poking in his pain-ridden brain did not make him as empathetic and patient as he desperately wished to be with her.

“Animals in heat, Molly,” he spoke between clenched teeth, and watched how her eyes widened, filled with questions he wished he could just burn to ash. “What is there to explain?”, he nearly sobbed when she stayed silent, watching him with painful wonder. What could she possibly expect from him? Would she like to hear they fucked so hard they broke a table, or how he had climbed on top of Hannibal as he slept, and rode him awake with that cock deep inside his leaking, begging hole, that his forehead thudded against the glass when his Alpha drove into him from behind, or how Hannibal had rimmed him in the shower until his chin was dripping with Will's slick. Fuck, no, she did not want to know these things. She had no idea what she was asking, and he had no idea what she wanted to hear.

“You watch the Discovery Channel,” he added between his tightened lips and Molly's eyes narrowed at his awkward choice of words before she took a deep breath, pressed her knees tighter together and bit her lips into her mouth. “Will,” she sighed, and he knew instantly he had been trying to provoke her into anger, or disgust, because as she spoke his name full of pity, he felt the sudden urge to yank his curls right out of his skull. 

_Fuck. Stop._

Molly didn't get mad. Molly loved him, trusted him. He was the victim. He was the wounded lamb. The weakling. The Omega. 

“Was it painful?”, she asked him.  
“No,” he answered, because never had it hurt for the sole purpose of bringing pain.  
“Was it awful?”, she then asked, and he knew this question had been seasoning in her brain for quite some time.  
“No,” he replied without making eye contact. At last, truth, in its bare minimum.  
“Did you... enjoy it?”, she asked him, after half a minute of everlasting silence, and he felt his skin tighten and his muscles clench as if fighting an eerie cold wind. The question was incomplete. A simple yes or no wouldn't provide a suitable answer. Enjoyed it? God, it had been everything, everything thinkable, everything experience-able, everything real and everything unreal. But 'enjoyable' was not a word in the same realm as what those moments had been, as they had only ever lingered on either outer rim of the spectrum. 

Molly confused his silence for hesitation, and broke through the flow of words that tried to compose a proper response behind his eyes. “It's OK if you did, I mean...”, she said, quick to comfort him when she thought she had pushed too far. He didn't look at her, but Molly brushed a hand over his upper arm, demanding his attention. “I'm sorry, I just can't get my head around this, you know?”, she said, apologetically, and this time, he did look at her. “I'm glad that you can't”, he confessed, feeling a cold shiver run up his arms at the hint of a frown on her forehead, beneath those full, blond bangs. Whether he stayed with her or couldn't, there were things she should never try to imagine inside her innocent head. “I know you think you want to know these things, but you don't, Molly.” He reached for her sheet-covered ankle, knowing he was being terribly unfair, and the pain that crunched beneath her eyes reflected that back to him. “Let's try to move forward.” Because try was all he could at this point, and even if the alienation and secrecy she was trying to breach would stretch and grow, she would still be safely far from what would be damaging truth and reality.

“I don't _want_ to know, Will,” she bit, and he pulled his hand back at the sharp slice of her sweet voice. “But I _need_ to.” Her hand came flat against his sternum before she clenched her fingers in the fabric of his shirt, and he looked up to see her lean closer. “If this...”, she started, pointing between both their chests, “can become _us_ again, you will have to start letting me in.” Her big blue-gray eyes stared deep into his, and he noticed the use of the word 'start.' Not again, or continue, but start. Did she realize she had always been placed right outside the outer rim of his mind, or had the word slipped in unconsciously, revealing an old, hidden, frustration?

He pulled the blanket higher up his chest, clinging to something that would make him feel less exposed. “It was just something that happened, Molly”, he said, “Beyond anyone's control.” He lowered his eyes when she nodded, once, and pressed nails into her fingertips. “Did it start at the hospital, when you saw him there?”, she then asked him. As innocent as the question was, so unbearable was the answer. Where did it start, for them? Where had this connection ever started? When he had read the letter? When they'd first met? When his mother had given birth to him on an old, dirty mattress in the first house, of many, he had lived in? “Maybe, I don't know,” Was the shortest version of the truth he could safely provide her.

“It must have been a real shock that it was for someone like Hannibal,” Molly spoke through the memories, and he turned his head towards her. “He was your therapist. You trusted him.” Her hand moved over his knee, on top of the blanket. The joint ground under the touch. “And then he turned out to be a monster.” Will knew she was thinking of the smile on his belly, just as her eyes slid along the silver line on his forehead. All the visible souvenirs of their time together. Anyone who looked at those scars would see abuse, but whenever he slid his own fingers along the marred skin, he felt nothing but their hopeless search for forgiveness.

“Hannibal wasn't just my therapist,” he heard himself say, words flowing before he could properly dissect them as the outlines of his Alpha started to form behind his eyes. His Omega purred weakly at the vision, a distraction from despair. “He was my friend.” He would have huffed at his own word, unfitting for what it was they had shared, and what they still shared today. Hannibal had been his friend, his villain, his obsession and his darkness. The worst or the best of him, depending on the beholder.

Molly looked at him, took her hand back and lifted her chin off her knees with a carefully spun expression. If there was anger, she hid it. “You've told me what he's done to you,” she said, her eyes steady as they brushed across his face. “Do you still consider him a friend?” She was curious yet confused by the innocent words, spoken with the weight he had given them. 

No would be the wrong answer, just as much as yes. He looked at his own hands, sprawled across his knees. In his head, the outlines of his mate were starting to tuck and twist in more accurate detail. “Hannibal and I always shared an intense connection,” he confessed, closing his eyes briefly when he felt the scratch he was dealing her. He hadn't told her about him. Nothing beyond factual. He had hidden Hannibal from the world, and his own wife, like a diary he kept locked in his nightstand. And maybe it was all because he had understood, deep in his subconscious brain, just how far their connection reached within him. And how the world, and his wife, would look upon it.

“You've not been open about your relationship with him, before you met me,” Molly said, almost clinical as she curled her hands over her knees. She didn't act surprised, witnessing the layers of guilt on his face. “He wasn't just your evil therapist,” she read him like a profiler, and pressed her full lips together as she moved her eyes over the lines of his face. “And you were not just a helpless victim of his crimes.” She smiled then, with one corner of her lips drawing up in painful satisfaction. “How am I doing?” And she was no fool. Will wondered if she saw this now, or if she had simply dismissed the knowledge that already existed inside her a long time ago.

He did huff this time, and the pull of his chest felt like a punch to his sternum. He hadn't told her about his time with Hannibal. Not because of shame or pride or because it wasn't important. It had been a different time, a different life, and nothing that would help anyone understand him better. “It doesn't matter,” he said, shaking his head as he breathed out through his tightened lips, knowing he wasn't meeting what she required as she huffed through her nose. 

“Were you lovers, back then?”, she asked him, and it wasn't an odd direction to take. She didn't even sound angry, but tired of being blinded. Of being the fool.

“No,” Will said, lifting his head as his eyes met her hard and determined this time. “It wasn't like that.” The initial _'at all'_ got stuck between his teeth, as he remembered the cupping fingers on his jaw, the longing looks, the hands sliding over shoulders. It had never been nothing. 

Molly nodded slowly, and bit her bottom lip with her front teeth. “Were you in love with him?”, she asked, and this time her voice was a fragile bell of thin glass. A tight fist that lived inside Will's chest squeezed around his windpipe at the sound of it. He looked at her, eyes wide and shimmering like that of a exposed deer, and remembered how he had found love for her in himself, years ago. It was a choice to love her, to be hers, and it had brought little pinches of joy to his life. But Hannibal, he had never fallen in love with him. The emotion that belonged to him, then and now, never was to be described as a flutter of his heart, a cloud to drift upon, a caressing ray of warmth on his skin. What Hannibal had done, was grab him whole with sharpened claws and drowned him in the darkness that pooled endlessly inside him. Everything there was exquisite, excruciating, glory and devastation. 

Hannibal was all love, all death, all pain and pleasure wrapped in one smothering blanket that shielded him from the sun. A sun that had always felt too bright to his eyes, too hot on his skin. 

“It's not...”, he breathed, unsure how to proceed. _In love_ was not the term, but no wasn't the answer. It was beyond, it was higher and deeper and... “Are you in love with him now?”, Molly asked, her voice cracking on the words while Will's breath stuttered when he watched the lamplight reflect harder and brighter in her watering eyes.

“Molly, I can't...”, he breathed, gasping as he sat upright with a hand pressed against his own chest. His heart was thudding violently against his palm as panic pushed up inside him. 

_No. Not this. Not this._

How could he explain something to her he didn't understand? And how could he explain to her that feeling didn't matter. Choices, choices were what mattered. “Don't lie. Please don't lie,” she croaked, as one, lonely tear fell on her rosy cheek. Her hand cupped the side of her own face as she breathed deep, and Will felt like he was watching his own house burn down. There was no way to stop it from destroying what you worked for so hard to build, to keep, to have. Molly sniffled, wiped at her eyes, before clearing her throat. “I just need to know what point we are starting from,” she said, finding her voice and her strength. 

“So we can fix whatever is broken.”

_God._

Her words were heavenly sweet, maddeningly cruel. Still, she could forgive him, even if he did love another. But where to begin to fix things when everything was already ash? “We can fix this,” she repeated, and reached for his hand with all the fire she had left inside her. “Can't we?” The question was so fragile, already cracked along the edges, but he looked at her, saw her fear in those round, blue eyes and squeezed her hand. “That's why I came here,” he said, sucking the inside of his cheeks between his teeth as he played with her clammy fingers in his. “To try and fix things.”

And that wasn't an answer, but it was all and all truth. He was here, to try, and he was trying goddamn hard for her. So goddamn hard he was forgetting whose life it was he was trying to fix. His, hers...

“Hannibal is your Alpha,” Molly said, and Will's teeth ground at the name, the term, the wave it crashed against his ribcage. “Yes,” he said, being a coward as he tried to keep his eyes on hers. It was hard, and it hurt, but she couldn't be alone. “Are you b-bonded?”, she asked, a little hitch in her voice as her eyes brushed over his hidden shoulder, where she had seen the mark in his flesh. “No,” he was quick to answer her with an unsteady cry, shaking his head as he placed a hand on her bare arm. “No, we aren't.”

She waited for more of him, and he knew he could only disappoint when everything stayed locked inside his head. He looked at the doubt in her open eyes and wondered if he truly preferred it to downright pain. “Will...”, she spoke his name, a sigh, tired of pulling at him when he fought every step she tried to take. He stroked her arm, once, and placed his hand on the sheets. “He is my Per mutua nexis mate,” he answered her plea, and at last, she lowered her eyes from his face. She smiled as her hair fell into her eyes. “You belong to each other,” she said, a hum, a whisper, as she picked at the short nail of her index finger. It bloomed life within his chest, just to hear those words from someone else, and at the very same time he watched the free fall in her eyes and tasted sour on his tongue. When he stayed silent, she looked up with tight eyes, fighting whatever lingered beneath. “I did some research of my own,” she told him when she watched his bewildered expression, knowing he had hoped for her not to understand the volume of the Latin term. 

She sighed, very deep, very long, very, very tired, and Will looked at her and saw a broken bird on the side of the road. His nature was to help. “It doesn't matter, Molly,” he said between clenched teeth and took her hand between both of his with a determined squeeze. “I'm here, with you.” His grip was tight, as was his jaw, as was his quivering core. He held her hand like it was his only means to stay on the edge of that cliff, and in a way, he knew it was. Molly met his widened stare, and he knew she saw his fear.

“Yes, you are,” she said, letting her hand grip his in return, matching the strength of his muscles. “And what is this?” Her lips and jaw were tight, and her bags brushed against her eyebrows. “You can't even look me in the eye. You haven't, ever since you got back.” There was a real tremor in her voice, and Will held her hopeless blue gaze with his own. He couldn't break the contact, even though it weighed on him like like a pushing thumb between his eyes.

Her pink, soft cheeks were flushed when she said: “Did you choose me for you, or for me?”  
And in that moment, the world around them was still, frozen in sound and color and breath. “Do you love or pity me, Will?” They held each other with eyes and hands, as the light of the table lamp framed her against the darkness. Her chin was tilted, her eyes strong, her posture as proud as it was vulnerable as she waited for the sudden rush of white noise in his head to form around an answer.

Their fingers folded around each other, their palms pressed together, hot and damp. Her dark lashes blinked, fawning against her cheeks as another tear fell against the smooth skin beside her nose. She was that broken bird, and he didn't know how to help anymore.

Both of them jumped when a shrill ringing ripped the moment and cut through their bubble like a razor blade. “Fuck,” Will growled as their hands pulled from each other with a crack of his joints. The noise didn't stop, but grew in size as a loud buzz rose from the table beside his bed. His phone. It was his fucking phone. The clock said 00:30, and he hissed at the cutting, shrieking noise as he flung himself to the edge of the bed.

“ID Caller Unknown,” he read out loud, and heard Molly sniffling behind him. “Let it ring,” she replied as she moved to sit up, and swung her legs over her side of the bed. She stayed seated, however, and Will watched the phone in his hand. The screen was lit as it trembled against his bones. Unknown. That was what it said. ID caller unknown. But it wasn't. 

He knew his caller. He _felt_ his caller.

The outlines behind his eyes had become solid, in detail and color. 

Hannibal. Hannibal was reaching for him.

And like that, his heart was in his throat, his breath was in his belly, his mind was in his gut. He needed to answer. He needed to connect.

“Hello?”, he breathed, picking up after the fourth ring and bringing the mobile phone to his ear. He didn't hear Molly make any noise behind him, and didn't turn to look at her. “Will,” came the voice on the other end, and the Omega felt as if a rope had been tied around his ankles, as he was suddenly swooped up into the air. Upside down, dangling and helpless, light and full of flutter. Hannibal's voice sounded very far away, but relief burst like lightening through the smooth tones of his voice. He sounded weak, worried, and every hair on Will's body stood on edge at the tone.

“Leave the house, Will. Leave tonight,” Hannibal told him, and Will knew his Alpha had found a way to reach him, but didn't have the time. Seldom was he ever hurried. “Now.” Will gasped into the phone, and felt Molly's weight moving on the bed as his pounding heart danced beneath his singing skin.  
“Hannibal,” he whimpered, feeling naked and exposed, but helpless to hide it. “What is this?” He was already out of breath, his voice barely above a whisper. Molly stood, walk around the bed and came to stand before him, but he didn't look up to see the questions on her face. 

“Find another place to stay,” Hannibal urged, a growl seeping through the words, and Will knew his mate was clutching the phone like a lifeline. “Bring your family.” The lightning he had heard in Hannibal struck him with a thunderous fear at the realization. Will's eyes finally flashed up to his pale wife, standing in her nightshirt with her arms crossed over her chest. 

“He's coming?”, he asked, as his eyes met hers. “Yes,” Hannibal growled against his ear, and Will swallowed deep at the way his skin tightened at the sound. “You said he wouldn't come for me,” he spoke, hoarse and damaged into the receiver as his mind flashed back to their last night together. The black, hidden pools of Hannibal's eyes. “He isn't,” Hannibal hissed, almost as if his lips were truly against Will's skin. Will heard a stuttering breath and ran his eyes back up Molly's face, before everything went cold.

He was coming. The Dragon was coming for _her_.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rocks scrunched under his boots and the air bit into his damp face, but he kept his pace fast, light yet determined, as he approached the front door of their family home. The lights were on, the blinds were shut, just like they had left it. Nothing seemed different from the ordinary, and Will tried to calm himself with a deep breath that filled his lungs with cool winter air, the scent of wood and grass and rotting leaves...
> 
> And a hint of red, spicy peppers.

The line died with a mechanic click, and the hollow silence that followed pressed on his ear like the deep and dark bottom of the ocean. The loss was overwhelmingly isolating, silent yet ringing, like a ruptured eardrum after a thunderous explosion. The connection with his mate was ripped away, again, and the removal began to feel more and more like having the same strip of his skin cut out, long before it had properly healed. Deeper and more brutal on the marred, scarred flesh, every single time.

He turned to Molly and saw her eyes wide and confused in her pale face, as her fingers clutched the sides of her nightshirt. The fear and doubt that claimed her gentle features, however, were now merely a secondary concern”. “We have to go,” he said, gently but rapidly as he lowered the phone to his chest. “Get dressed.”

He swiftly turned towards the chair, grabbing his old jeans and worn socks, but the movement of his hands felt delayed, flashed, like linked pictures before a blinking light. He was beyond scared, he was beyond tired, he was slowly ripped apart from the depth of his core, to the roots of his teeth. “That was him,” came her voice from behind his back as he yanked the socks over his ankles, and felt perspiration forming on his temples. Everything felt slow, except for the violent thudding of his racing heart. “Come on, Molly,” he pleaded with half a turn of his head, and he watched cold fear lash across her face at the sight of his. She then, too, hurried to the abandoned clothes by her side of the bed. 

“That was Hannibal,” she spoke determinedly as she shimmied her hips into her jeans and reached for her beige, fleece vest. “It was,” Will confirmed, absent and hastily, as he pocketed his phone and wallet. The world shivered around him, making all the smooth lines harsh with tremor, like a heartbeat on a monitor. Their eyes met before he brushed past her into the hallway, and Will heard her following after him as she caught up with his hurried steps down the stairs. “Why did he call you?”, she demanded, catching the coat Will threw her as he searched for his car keys in his pockets. “Is he out?”, her voice lowered with hushed, squeezing fear that shimmered openly in her eyes as she pushed her arms through the sleeves. “Is he coming for you?”

Ice crusted cold and hard over Will's skin at her words, and he knew she could see the open grimace that jerked down his face. Her fear, her aversion and the sharp edges on her words were more than justifiable, reasonable, and yet the slightest poke against his mate was like a hard slap to a damaged cheek. “He's not who's coming, Molly,” he grunted, as he unlocked the front door and stepped into the cold darkness of the night. 

He was coming. Hannibal had told him. Soon, or now? His eyes darted through the empty darkness, and his nostrils flared as he took a deep whiff of the air that surrounded him. The rotting leaves, the damp wood, and the melting snow.

Nothing but the calm, cool, evening breeze.

“Then who?”, she urged as she zipped up her coat and watched him in bewilderment, his eyes moving restlessly through their front yard. “Get in the car, Molly,” Will hushed, moving alongside her as she passed the threshold. “Ask me a million questions later.” His voice was nothing but a whisper as he tried to calm his own, deep breathing and he opened the car door for her. 

_He wasn't here. The Dragon wasn't here._ Will's nose detected no scent, no spices, no hell. Not yet. In this moment, there was nothing but the grass, and the trees and the frozen dew that covered them. 

He slid behind the wheel and turned the car key in the ignition, before pushing the stick into reverse and glancing over his shoulder. The car roared under the fierce foot on the gas pedal and the moment Molly had buckled her seatbelt, the car shot back over the bumpy dirt road, made a sharp turn, and steered them away from the house. 

His heart was in his throat, his blood in his ears, and no word was exchanged between them as he drove the car through the deserted streets of the sleeping village. Molly was grasping her seat, cheeks pale and eyes far away, and Will glued his vision to bricks and then asphalt as he veered the car onto the highway. 

The lonely, black road flashed underneath the tires, and nothing could be heard over the rumbling of the old, loyal vehicle. And in the silent, empty night, it was just them, side by side and drenched in the grip of uncertainty and fear. He had brought it with him, when he'd returned from the depths of a hell that had fit him so effortlessly, and watching her now, he couldn't even think of a way to reach out, explain, or help. Because from the moment he had set foot into their lives again, he'd felt her pain, as well as he'd felt pain for her, but the emotion was shallow and the light around her was largely blocked by the dominant shape of his Alpha behind his eyes.

He wanted to give her what she deserved, but every time he dove down to retrieve it, he came up empty handed, tired, aching and destroyed. Eyes and mind on someone else.

He saw the moon, bright and full in the sky, and watched it travel with them, lighting the darkness. “There's another male Omega interested in Hannibal,” he then said over the purr of the car. His breath was smoke against the cold air, but he never felt the icy sting on his overheated skin. “Another?”, Molly repeated, the thick swallow revealing the fear that ticked away beneath her exterior. “Yes”, he answered hazily, eyes on the road, mind on Hannibal's words against his ear, but quickly turned his head when he heard the sharp intake of breath. “No, no,” he corrected, a quick shake of his head. Fuck this. There was no time to pick at the phrasing of his statements or her questions. “There is another male Omega,” he broke down the sentence and watched a wary, distraught look burst across her face. “He's interested in Hannibal.”

“ _He's_ coming for you?”, she breathed, open and outraged confusion tinging her words as her fingers grasped the seatbelt across her chest. “When? Why?” Will's hands clenched hard around the steering wheel as the questions stung like a thick needle to his vertebra. “Possibly now,” he answered her honestly and watched her nose twitch beneath her widened eyes. “And I don't know who he's coming for.” He wished it had been a lie this time. He knew the possibilities, but he didn't know the Dragon's plan. “I don't know anything for certain.” Their eyes met through the darkness of the car. “But I know we have to go.”

He watched the lanterns flash by the window and drove the car away from the village, into the city. They would have to find a hotel, stay the night, and that was as far as his plan reached at the moment. He looked at Molly, skin and hair pale blue in the moonlight, and watched her frantic eyes on the road ahead. There was nothing more he could think to say or do for her, and he swallowed as he pushed his eyes back to the road.

He couldn't even call the cops, because their questions of how and when would lead back to Hannibal, and his involvement with The Dragon. There were only so many incidents needed for Alana's authority to be overruled, and Hannibal's plea for insanity to be reopened. The only options left were flee, or fight. And this, fleeing in a car in the middle of the night, was an unbearable abnegation of his own instinct to find The Dragon, and push his fingers against the burning skin of his throat. 

He wouldn't put Molly in harm's way, nor Wally. Not ever. But inside, he thought of the way The Dragon slaughtered those families, impressing Will's Alpha, desperate to win him for himself. Fuck. He had to fight his own hands not to yank at the wheel and turn the car as he gritted his teeth inside his mouth. The Dragon wanted Hannibal. The Dragon wanted to murder Will's family to impress the Alpha, seduce him, bond with him, be with him. 

The Omega in him was starting to foam around his bleeding fangs, and Will felt the urgent desire to find The Dragon as he came for him and his family and threatening to destroy his life. He wanted to claim his Alpha, _his_ Alpha, _his_ Per mutua nexis mate, _HIS_. Will felt a low growl bursting from his throat and noticed Molly shuffling in the seat beside him. The desire to sink his fangs deep into the Omega's toxic windpipe was greater and bloodier than ever before, and his fingers twitched involuntarily on the wheel.

“Did Hannibal send him to us?”, Molly asked him just as he spotted their exit, and the car swerved dangerously on the empty road. His nails pressed into the leather as he looked at her wide, burning blue eyes. “No,” he barked, as his throat tightened with a heavy, nauseating pull. “N-no.” He remembered the black pools of hidden depth in Hannibal's eyes and felt his own tongue tighten in his mouth. “He was the one who warned us to leave, Molly.”

It was an assurance for himself and her alike, but he did close his eyes a second too long with his next blink. Hannibal didn't want him dead. Will knew, with everything he dared to be, that Hannibal no longer wished to truly damage him. But he did love the games, the challenges, and was endlessly curious, a puppeteer to the world around him. Hannibal always got what he wanted and Hannibal wanted a life with his Omega. Will's family was a definite _nuisance_. 

Suddenly, Will wasn't all that sure what the answer to Molly's question was anymore, and the lamb chops for dinner were working their way up his gullet.

_“You don't want me to have anything in my life that's not you.”_

“Where are we going?”, Molly asked him, long overdue, as he steered into the exit and drove passed a neon lit fast food joint. “A hotel,” Will breathed, eyes dead on the road ahead. “Any hotel.”

**

The room was cheap with walls thin as paper, a narrow queen size bed and with the prominent stench of cheap, lavender toilet cleaner. Molly was on the bed, her phone lighting her features with an unflattering glow as she scrolled along different news articles. “The Tooth fairy,” she mumbled, as she clicked on a link with a press of her finger. “ _That's_ the Omega? _That's_ the same guy who's after you?” Her eyes narrowed at the screen, before they widened in alarm. He briefly wondered if Freddie Lounds had any detailed pictures available on The TattleCrime.

“He calls himself _The Dragon_ ,” Will corrected her, a sour glaze over his mocking words. “But yes, that's the guy.” Molly swallowed as her eyes moved left to right, reading text off the screen as the corners of her mouth and eyes twitched. “If you know who he is, how come the police didn't catch him yet?” She asked, and Will lowered himself in the wicker chair by the balcony door. “Because he's really good at not getting caught,” he said, absently running a hand against his throat. “He's fast, he's strong and he doesn't stand out in a crowd.” Fingers danced along his collarbone, pressing against his old bruises. “And he doesn't desire any attention from anyone but Hannibal.” The named was gritted between his teeth as his eyes flashed hastily to the floor. Control. 

“Is he the same guy from the park?”, Molly asked, ignoring the burst of emotions, and for a moment he was stunned by her ability to link previous events, putting two and two together in a time where all sorts of numbers were already flying. “The one you had the _'argument'_ with?” Her eyes flashed over his throat and Will quickly brought down his hand from his marred skin. “Yes,” he said, a hoarse rasp to his voice and she huffed, lowering the phone to her lap.

“We do need to call the police,” she said, and Will felt his back hunch and his arms tighten. She had heard him, but hadn't listened. _They_ wouldn't catch him. The Dragon had been successfully invisible for the authorities for a long, long time before today and the only thing a phone call would bring was an opportunity for them to make a connection between Hannibal and the fugitive Omega. 

But what could they do? Would they go back home in the morning, hoping for the exercise to not be repeated? Would they pack their things and go, far enough not to be found? Further and further from his Alpha, that pulled the strings around his heart so tight it was starting to bleed within his chest.

“Will?”, Molly asked, holding up her phone as she looked at him in question. Her cheeks were flushed, but beneath the blush was a grayish tint that gave away the fear and exhaustion she tried to hide behind that brave mask. One she always carried around him and Wally. 

He quickly shook his head and rose to his feet to glance out the window, as she blinked at him and lowered her phone back to the bed. “Do you think Hannibal is lying?”, she asked, and his whole body twitched at the name. She ignored his distress, but lifted herself off to bed to stand before him. “Is he trying to trick you into coming back?” She looked into his eyes, and he almost smiled at the nature of the sweet question. How innocently she was still thinking.

“No, Molly. I know he isn't lying,” he said, and brushed a finger over her heated cheek. Trick him into coming back? Maybe it was the ultimate goal of whatever game Hannibal was _possibly_ playing, but that would be only after his family had been buried in the local cemetery, mirror shards removed from their empty sockets. “You are very quick to trust someone who isn't known for being very trustworthy,” she spoke, leaning into his touch, but her eyes on him were deep, growing deeper as he felt himself invaded. “I know him,” he was quick to counter. The response was instinctual, a primal urge to defend, but questions pushed from the walls of his mind as he wondered, just how strongly his mate was connected to the deranged, family murderer.

“Why is this man, _allegedly_ , coming to our house, Will?”, Molly demanded, her teeth visible as her upper lip curled in frustration. “Is it because we are a family? Is he coming after all of us?” There was a shrill slice of panic rising from her words as she stabbed him with sharp realization. “That is what he does, isn't it?”, she gasped between her open lips. “That is what he does.”

And Will knew she was talking about The Dragon,... 

...but the words echoed back to Hannibal. His Alpha. Will had left him, and what would be more beautiful than to take away the reason for his leaving? To make the Omega come back to him without any attachments left in the world, and his own hands clean? _That's what he does, isn't it?_

_Fuck._

But he had called. 

He _did_ call.

Molly grasped his wrist with her fingers, demanding his eyes back to hers. “He kills the families,” she said, her voice thick and her breathing shallow. “The kids, the pets....oh God, Will.” He could see the fear seeping through the cracks and wash over her features before she turned back to the bed. In the same instant, the words whipped against his back with such a fierce strike he almost stumbled on his feet. “The dogs,” he gasped, eyes wide and mouth agape as he realized how their family of strays was currently curled up and asleep in the scullery. 

In his blind panic, he had forgotten. He had forgotten they, too, could be a target, and they could be in danger. 

“Walter. Wally. I have to call my mother,” Molly murmured hastily as she reached for the phone on the bed. Her thoughts were those of a mother. His, those of the man who lived with his family of strays, like when he still lived in Wolf Trap. 

“I'm going back,” Will said, zipping his coat back up as his eyes darted to the door. The Dragon could so easily hurt them. Lizzie was still limping from the operation on her left paw, and Stewart was getting stiff with age. They couldn't all outrun him. The couldn't all defend themselves. “No,” Molly snapped, holding up her phone in search for bars. He searched for the keys in his pocket. “Will, no,” she warned him, stepping towards the balcony door and sliding it to the side. “No reception,” she mumbled, as she started pacing on the dirty, wet tiles, phone clutched in her fingers. Finally, she was able to press her thumb over the green icon to connect the call, and brought the device to her ear.

“Stay here,” she bit at him, before her mother's alarmed voice rung from the other side of the line. Before Molly could turn back to look at him a second time, he was out the door.

**

Will parked the car by the edge of the road, avoiding drawing attention to his arrival. He didn't lock the vehicle, but dimmed the lights as he treaded carefully over frozen gravel beneath his heavy boots. He wasn't armed and ready for battle, and he didn't come with a plan other than get his dogs out of that house and into his car. Where he would go after that, with eight dogs stuffed and cramped together in the modest vehicle, he had no fucking idea. 

The rocks scrunched under his boots and the air bit into his damp face, but he kept his pace fast, light yet determined, as he approached the front door of their family home. The lights were on, the blinds were shut, just like they had left it. Nothing seemed different from the ordinary, and Will tried to calm himself with a deep breath that filled his lungs with cool winter air, the scent of wood and grass and rotting leaves...

And a hint of red, spicy peppers.

He slowed his pace as he walked up to the porch and reached the front door. He didn't touch the doorknob, knowing the scent wasn't leading inside, but stared at his cold, unsteady hands instead, and listened to the silence of the night around him. He breathed deep, tasted the burn on his tongue and briefly closed his eyes. Then, he turned.

There, a rough ten feet away from him, stood a saw the tall, broad frame of a familiar man. The figure had moved in on him without making a sound, but Will wasn't shocked to see him already there. 

The Dragon wore an old, brown jacket, and hid his large hands in the pockets on the front. His smile was barely there, but enough to pull at the scar on his lip, showing a hint of gleaming fang. He was hidden in shadows, but his eyes shimmered red in the light of the full moon that pulsed in the sky. 

“They're not here,” Will said, balling his hands into fists as he watched his enemy stand perfectly still in the chilly wind that pulled around them. “It's just me.”

The Dragon let his fierce eyes run up the house, over the lights that glowed behind the curtains on the first floor. “Mr. Graham,” he said, his voice as low and penetrating as grinding gears. “I did not come for you, tonight.” 

Will's breath froze in his lungs as he felt the weight of the words. There was nothing new in them, but the reality of the situation suddenly made his head spin. “You came for my family,” he said in return, and watched The Dragon's glowing eyes burn past the confinement of his sockets, making the back of Will's hair rise from his skin. “I did.” He spoke, and the hiss that slithered from between his pointed teeth reminded Will of a serpent. “It's my offering to Doctor Lecter.”

And there, Will felt everything in and on him tighten so cruelly he could feel pressure behind the orbs of his eyes. He felt a growl pushing up his throat and gritted his teeth at the words. An offering. His family was an offering to his mate. A gift from another Omega, to _his_ mate. _His_ Alpha, _his_ Alpha, _HIS FUCKING ALPHA._

He knew he had no control over how his mind prioritized these things anymore, nor did he have any time to feel an appropriate amount of guilt as he felt the animal inside him push up and pulse with newfound life that made him curl his lip over his upper teeth with a low growl.

“Then why wait until I got here?”, he challenged with a question that continued to linger in the back of his mind. The Dragon had waited, with purpose, for him to return home. If he didn't wish to kill him, then why? The red eyes flashed with passionate delight when he saw Will's anger so openly on his face. “Because your suffering and your grief will make you worthless as a mate,” he answered, teeth gleaming blue in the moonlight as his eyes burned an orange flame. “I wanted you to see.”

Will felt he could crush his own molars with the pressure he was grinding on them, as he realized just how he was played. His family had been a target, unsafe all through his absence, but The Dragon had waited for all his pawns to be positioned just right to do the ultimate damage. The grief for his family would be a convenient tool to make him less the attentive, interesting partner for a man as well-made and self-reliant as Hannibal. It was a smart enough thought, as much as it was absolutely, madly disturbing. Most of all, it was exceptionally wrong. 

If Will had it in him to laugh in this moment, he would have done. Oh, how wonderful the proof that The Dragon did not know Hannibal at all. Had he, he would have understood that broken spirits were perfect to mold back into the desired shape, already crumbled down to lumps and easier to knead. It wasn't without reason Hannibal had chosen to become a psychiatrist. He had worked so hard, once, to make Will into that warmed, pliant, piece of clay.

Will didn't tell him that.

“Two birds, one stone,” he said instead, and watched The Dragon take his hands from his pockets, folding them before his coat-clad abdomen. “I was hoping to catch three,” the Omega purred in return, and Will pushed his toes hard against the nose of his shoe. Walter. He wanted Molly and Walter dead, Will damaged beyond repair, and his own claim on Hannibal.

“Did he tell you I was coming?”, the man proceeded, his tone low, nearly casual. It made Will unsteady on his feet, as something pushed up within his chest. Something faint, but hot. He didn't have to ask who The Dragon was referring to. “How does he know you were coming?”, Will countered, and watched the smug expression slide over the modest features of the rivaling Omega.

“I informed him about my intentions,” he said, provoking him with a heated glance, as if the memory of the conversation was one he savored for long, lonely evening. “When?”, Will asked, ice pulling over his face like a tight mask. When had he known? How long before his mate had chosen to warn him, while his family had been in danger from the moment he'd presented? The Dragon's eyes gleamed, arousal evident as he watched Will's poorly hidden despair. “Before tonight,” he threw him, knowing it would burn. “Generously so.”

Will's head filled with nothing but the dark abyss of Hannibal's eyes. He had called him. He had warned him, yes. But before tonight, he had wanted Will's family to suffer a cruel death by the hands of his _other_ suitor. He had intended to let it happen, and watch Will suffer the loss. Hadn't he? Will waited for the meaning to sink in, for the anger to explode inside his belly, for the betrayal to push for room inside his head. But only the faint, hot claws that dug up from his core were grazing at his insides with sharp nails. Hannibal had wanted it. After everything, no part of that thought was a surprise to him. He had never trusted Hannibal to try and spare him or his loved ones from harm, even by proxy. But Hannibal _had_ called him. At the last moment available, with room for Will to fail, but he had called him. That was the true surprise. 

“I am disappointed he chose to reach out to you,” The Dragon shrugged lightly in his brown jacket. His breath, too, came out like puffs of smoke, and the image was eerily appropriate. “But he does enjoy testing my skills for improvisation.” The fond tone was sickening, and Will hated the hot pleasure he could see dancing in the red eyes of the other Omega. He spoke about Hannibal as a close relationship, thick as thieves behind Will's back, and Will felt the bloody claw push hotter from within him. He knew Hannibal. He _knew_ him. Whatever this lunatic imagined to be true..... 

“He's not going to fucking bond with you,” he hissed fiery between his teeth as The Dragon rubbed his hands together. To fight off the cold, or in pure enjoyment. His eyes shone wild and bright, and Will pushed his own nails into his upper legs. “Listen...”, he growled, feeling a choking desire to rip those smirking lips off The Dragon's face and watching the blood drip black on the snow.

But The Dragon shook his head and folded his hands before him with a rise of his eyebrows. “If not willingly, a one-sided bond will suffice,” he said, staring at Will with unblinking eyes as his perfectly steady posture clashed with the rustling world around him. “A what?”, Will hissed after a white moment of nothing, as his mind reached franticly for all the Omega terms that had ever passed his ears. “All I need, is access to him,” The Dragon spoke, calm, in stark contrast with his opponent, and Will started to feel his organs chafe and bruise within his body. Not long now, before they would start to bleed.

The Dragon smelled the distress, and bathed in it like champagne as his eyelids lowered with pleasure. “As I told you before, I have discovered a way to make that happen.” And Will remembered The Dragon's offer, a way to bring Hannibal out of his prison, and into the world. Whatever he had been thinking of, it was clear he had perfected his plans into being executable. Access to Hannibal. “You're going to bite him?”, he asked, his voice rising in outraged confusion. If The Dragon would bite his Alpha, what would happen to Hannibal? An Omega biting an Alpha wasn't how a bond worked. Or was it? He suddenly wished he had listened more carefully to Dr. Hammings, when he'd had the opportunity.

The Dragon's eyes glazed over as he dove into the fantasy he imagined behind his eyes. “All I need is his life force, to...” But everything within Will was grinding and pulling and rubbing together until it started to fume. “Yes, I know, fuel _The Dragon_ ,” he spat, nostrils flaring, despite his desperate attempt not to breathe in the spicy, burning air that the wind could not blow away from him. “What does that mean? What is a one-sided bond?”

The Dragon looked at him with nothing but a small push of his lips, but his eyes seemed already lost in the cave of his mind, where he undoubtedly already had the Alpha in the desired place. Will understood, for the first time, he had misread the words, misunderstood the intentions, and unexpectedly, that only made it worse.

“You don't want to be his mate,” he said, and watched the burning eyes light up The Dragon's own features. It shrouded every crease of his face in shadows, and made it look like he was crafted from dark, expensive wood. “I will change him,” he answered Will, his low voice soft and played by the wind. “He will become the heart of The Dragon inside me.”

Will felt a slow drip of his blood from the inner walls of his belly, cold as ice as they landed on the pink flesh beneath his pelvis. “You want to use for him for your ritual,” he said, a rumble in his broken voice as The Dragon burned majestically from the inside out, before his eyes. “The energy in him is pure, beautiful darkness. I want to release it, and become one with it,” he rumbled smoothly, and the heat that pulsed from his body was like standing too close to an open fire.

Will didn't step back. He let it burn, as his own body started to fill up with the spill of his blood. “You want to kill him,” he whispered, his chest hollowed by the words, his mind blackening into blindness at the thought. 

The Dragon blinked lazily. “I want to honor him, by sacrificing him to The Dragon.”

And everything in Will suddenly drew tight, tighter, enough to make his own blood splash against the bones. The claw that pushed up burst through the attic of his skull, breaking free the wounded, foaming Omega inside. Blood overtook him, coloring everything black in the moonlight. Will felt his teeth grow, his nails lengthen, his back hunch, and with a loud, piercing howl, he found himself launching forward, until his body connected with The Dragon.

There was only one thing left inside his mind. It wasn't Molly. It wasn't Wally. It wasn't even Hannibal. All he could think, and breathe, and desire, was to kill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oompf!


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In front of him, was a door. A most familiar one.
> 
> It was a simple, light painted, wooden door, with a touch of classic workmanship to give it that finishing touch of elegance.
> 
> He had seen it many times already. He had stared at it, feeling impatience, excitement, even fear. He had opened it and entered it in various stages of well-being, emotional as well as physical.
> 
> Usually, he was to wait until he was welcomed by what lived on the other side, but as he stared at the pale wood, he felt an increasing throbbing spread from his face to his back, and quickly grew restless. Anxious with discomfort and timelessness.
> 
> The handle wasn't cold under his touch, nor was it warm. The weight and temperature of it was almost without sensation, as if only existing inside a dream, a memory. Then, Will stepped inside the poorly-lit room he had spent so many of his evenings. Comfortable, terrified, intrigued and pained.

The air around them froze in time and temperature alike, as Will's body collided hard with a wall of solid muscles and hot skin. The impact was deep and sudden enough to send them both crashing into the unforgiving soil beneath their slipping feet. And as he reached out and locked his cold hands around the blazing skin of a bare throat, a roar made of pure fury and surprise filled Will's ears. The contact burned cruelly against his hands, barely endurable enough to hold on, but Will's bared teeth were purposeful and merciless as they snapped forward in search for breakable flesh, until sinking into the underside of a tilted chin. 

The anguished howl against Will's ear was mixed with pure rage as he locked his jaws deeper into the vulnerable flesh. The blood that passed his lips seeped through the cracks of his teeth and burned his tongue like a blazing soup made of boiling red ghost peppers. But the way it slid down his throat and into his belly made the freed Omega in him blaze with vociferous glory. The eyes of the beast shone wild and bright as he rejoiced in the taste of his enemy, and it was everything from thunderous destruction, to howling, baring life. 

This was war, power, carnage, and only one of them would walk away from it alive. The knowledge made Will's body tremble with both fear and desire as he felt himself fold out into a beastly shape, where the length of his spine curled up and sharpened beneath his skin, and fingers and toes spread wide against the surface beneath. He latched on to the torn flesh, ripping at the bleeding skin between his teeth as The Dragon struggled beneath his hold, and never before had he felt stronger. More alive. Completely in his nature.

It was beautiful.

“OH,” came the push of air from his lungs when a tight, strong fist connected with his ribcage with such power it sent him flying backwards, slamming his head back into the frozen dirt. He wheezed and growled, grabbing his chest as he fought for air in his compressed lungs, while The Dragon's blood seeped from his mouth onto the virgin white snow. Will heard a vicious snarl coming from just beyond his vision, and knew the element of his surprise attack had worn off rather too quickly. 

The Dragon jumped to his feet with one hand pressed against his damaged throat, and in the gleaming moonlight Will caught sight of the smoking skin, pale and frosted around the bite. His bite. He fought the air back into his body as his chest expanded under the strain of his bruised muscles, and realized with panting victory that where The Dragon was hot like fire to him, it appeared he was cold like ice to The Dragon.

Will moved quickly to get back onto his feet, and felt his claws jerking against the palms of his skin as he watched his rival's exposed, impressive fangs. “I didn't come for you, Mr. Graham,” The Dragon hissed low in the back of his throat, lighting the darkness with eyes so red they appeared to be bleeding. “That doesn't mean I won't take you, if you insist on it.” His silhouette was haunting in the darkness, and his eyes flowed a misty red along his features as he hunched his back, and licked his fangs. Blood trickled over the hand covering his throat, but his stance was strong and unwavering. Will mimicked the position, and watched his enemy through the eyes of his beast. He knew the man, the human, inside him was not be as strong as The Dragon was, but his wolf had proven long before now that he was savage and ruthless and refused to be overlooked.

Will didn't provide a response, nor did he find the fear that should make his hands shake and his heart pound. Instead, he moved himself steady, weightless, with nothing but destruction on his mind. Right now, he was adrenaline, he was instinct, man as well as beast, defending and claiming what was already his. His Omega howled from every corner of his skeleton and Will knew he would fight until death. 

The Dragon shot forward and Will growled when he was pushed back against the side of the house, before a long, dirty nail suddenly pierced his cheek. He snapped his sharp fangs, but the sting was shocking and became unbearable when the tip of the claw grazed his teeth inside his mouth. A harrowing cry ripped from his throat as the knife-like nail ripped through his flesh from his ear to the corner of his mouth, and he felt the skin parting beneath the razor sharp claw as blood spilled down his chin. The pain was scorching, burning the open skin around the wound with a horrific stench of smoldering flesh, but the helpless panic that whirled up inside Will was instantly crushed beneath the paws of his beast, as he felt a primal strength stirring in his limbs and searing through his veins.

With a ripping growl, Will kicked off his attacker and launched himself right after the stumbling body. Jumping forward, his own claws slashed over The Dragon's clothed chest and shredded the brown coat and shirt until blood welled from beneath and spilled over the fabric. The Dragon snarled at the contact, as Will tried to reach for the skin of his belly, marking it with red lines, not deep enough to truly damage. Will had never knows his claws to be so strong and sharp, but it explained why The Dragon had never needed weapons to mutilate his victims.

A violent whack to the skull made Will's head spin and his curls bounce as he stumbled on his feet, feeling his temple throbbing beneath the bone before he was hauled up by a large, burning fist that clenched around his windpipe. His snarl became a whimper, as he grabbed the strong fingers around his throat with both his own hands, and looked into the burning eyes before him. There was no air to breathe, no strength in his human limbs, but all he saw was the fierce glow from his own eyes, reflecting back in The Dragon's. Blue and cold like the ocean, the snow in the forest, a storm in the sky. 

He was an Omega. 

He was a powerful, savage Omega. 

Never had he understood what that meant, until this moment.

He hissed his teeth bare and kicked at The Dragon's stomach before bringing his fangs down into the man's fiery arm. Deep, hard, until blood spilled into his mouth, and he growled savagely when he latched onto the bones chafing against his fangs. The Dragon hissed, and with a breaking crash, Will was back on his back in the dirt as his arm was twisted away from him, and hot fangs buried deep into his shoulder blade.

And fuck, did it hurt, but Will felt the rush and the pleasure of his wolf as he tried to twist away from the shredding teeth, and fought to destroy what needed destruction. Justice, revenge, honor. It was beautiful, intimate, with nothing of what nature had given them, and it was right. It felt right.

He threw himself backwards to yank The Dragon's fangs from his flesh, and flipped himself onto his stomach as he crawled to straddle the wounded man on the ground. Blood dripped from his own chin onto The Dragon's bared chest, and the liquid formed into ice crystals the moment it landed on the skin. Will paused, just for a second, to watch the demon-like creature beneath him and wondered for the briefest moment if he, too, looked like he had risen from the depths of hell. 

What he knew, now, here, was that this was the closest he'd ever been to truth. About himself, about the world, who he was and what brought him life. What brought silence, and beauty, to the ugly whirl of noise inside him. 

Hannibal had told him this, had known him without ever needing to witness it. He had been right.

The Dragon's eyes flickered with a storm of fire that lived within, but Will bared his fangs, growled past his sharp teeth and felt the blizzard of his own Omega rattle his bones inside his body. The beast was free, and unwilling to let that freedom go to waste. He dropped himself forward against the burning demon beneath him and bit down hard into the Omega's jugular. 

A howling shout pierced the sky as hot blood stuttered and splashed free from the ruptured artery. Thick, and black, smoking against the cool evening sky.

Death.

“NO,” The Dragon gasped, struggling beneath Will as he brought one hand up to press against the vicious tear in his throat. The hellish fire in his eyes spat and stuttered sparks across his pale cheeks as he gasped for breath and life, clinging to Will's shoulders with his long, sharp claws. Blood poured from his mouth, painting his fangs a hellish red as the light in his eyes dimmed and flickered inside his skull. 

“The Dragon needs him,” he rasped. “The Dragon needs me.” His voice was lost in a gurgle from his throat, slowly drowning in his own blood. 

He was dying. 

He was dying, because Will made it happen.

And Will felt triumph and pure euphoria pumping through his veins as he watched the life pour from the Dragon's body, and heard the choir inside his head, singing in the chapel. He felt the cool stream of his river, smelled the wood and snow and gave in to the deep pleasure of the victory that was watching something that had threatened your existence, die beneath his hand. 

But victory was pain, as much as it was pleasure.

Because there was a violent sting, a vicious jerk at the flesh of his back, and sharp claws slid through the skin across his shoulders, down to his flanks. The Dragon's eyes widened at the effort, and Will felt his own skin tear against the bones as hot blood poured down his back. But he was silent and still as he watched The Dragon's eyes flash and stutter, before fading to a deep, dead black.

And as he slid off The Dragon's mutilated body and fell, face first, upon the frozen cold dirt, he felt himself slipping into nothingness. He didn't feel pain, but the steaming blood seeped from his wounds into the snow, and the world around him grew colder and darker with every breath from his lungs. His eyes fluttered, his hands clenched against the frozen grass, and before he could start his fight for consciousness, everything had already left him.

**

In front of him, was a door. A most familiar one.

It was a simple, light painted, wooden door, with a touch of classic workmanship to give it that finishing touch of elegance.

He had seen it many times already. He had stared at it, feeling impatience, excitement, even fear. He had opened it and entered it in various stages of well-being, emotional as well as physical.

Usually, he was to wait until he was welcomed by what lived on the other side, but as he stared at the pale wood, he felt an increasing throbbing spread from his face to his back, and quickly grew restless. Anxious with discomfort and timelessness.

The handle wasn't cold under his touch, nor was it warm. The weight and temperature of it was almost without sensation, as if only existing inside a dream, a memory. Then, Will stepped inside the poorly-lit room he had spent so many of his evenings. Comfortable, terrified, intrigued and pained.

The colors, the furniture, the drapes and the black stag statue made of solid bronze. It was the same. He remembered the smell of the books and wine and Hannibal's cologne. He remembered the dying sunlight sneaking through the tall windows and casting them in a warm, orange glow. He remembered the warmth and the shadows cast on the walls by the flames in the fireplace. 

And then he felt the pull, the weakness that overtook his joints and muscles, and he closed his eyes as a staggering yearning crept into his nerves and veins, smelling of winter, burned wood, and home. He felt struck, overwhelmed, and his lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he breathed in deep, and found the strength to turn.

And in his chair, he found him. Knowing he had been there, dressed in a gray and blue checkered suit and with that neat side parting in his ash blond hair. The vision was paradise, infernal. 

“Hannibal.”

The smile his Alpha gave him, barely visible on his stoic features, was one of spotless joy. But the corners were encrusted with honest agony, and around the flawless image of his mate swarmed a hint of gray distortion. A glitch on an, otherwise perfectly, attuned television screen. 

Will's throat squeezed tight at the sight of his Alpha in the long abandoned setting he knew so well, and watched how his mate crossed his legs before him. 

“Will, please, take a seat,” Hannibal humored him with an echo of the past as he gestured to the chair opposite himself. Will hesitated before he sank into the familiar leather of the coffee brown seat, and let his legs fall open under the weight of his sagging posture. The scene was comfortably surreal.

“I took the liberty of picking the location this time,” Hannibal spoke pleasantly, eyeing and gesturing to the office around them. Will blinked at his words, with eyes deep on the sharp lines of his Alpha's face. Features, dips and curves he could dream to the last crease, as was evident in the current situation. “Are we in my mind again?”, he asked, and Hannibal smiled at him with gentle, bourbon eyes that shimmered no deeper than the surface alone. “And mine,” he replied, fondness thick in his voice, but strained inside the smooth tones of honey. “I discovered that we share this place.” 

Will felt the tender stroke of his mate's gaze like a glorious fire for his frozen limbs, a stroke of bliss in a battlefield, and he had to restrain himself not to pull from his chair, and land on his knees before the Alpha. “Oh,” he said, instead, hypnotized by the voice that sang around and around inside his skull, savoring the tones, the curl of his tongue against each letter breached. Hannibal breathed deeply through his nose and folded his hands together on his lap, as if in need for something to hold on to. “I suppose we both have good memories here,” he said, and even as the corners of his lips twitched up, his eyes showed deep rings on the surface of the dark pools, made of something unfamiliar on his Alpha. On anyone else, Will would have called it fear.

He looked at his mate's hands, fingers twitching against each other in a way that could be called fidgeting, and Will swallowed visibly as the cloud of distortion on Hannibal's features grew rapidly more disturbing. Hannibal did not fear, or fidget, or reveal what he wished to conceal. 

“So, tell me everything,” the Alpha then said, his tone perfectly conversational, and Will folded his own hands together as he watched his perfect mate spilling, leaking life onto the floor. Their eyes touched, as if it was the only ledge left to cling to.

“I was with The Dragon,” Will answered, his eyes suddenly darting around the room, as if expecting to find him there between the bookcases. Hannibal hummed low in his throat before he spoke, and the sound was pushed through tightened, raw vocal cords.

“You fought him,” his mate confirmed, eyes sharp on Will's face as they traced down his cheek. Suddenly, the Omega felt a dull, throbbing sensation along the skin above his jawline and moved a hand to his face. “Y-yes,” he stuttered and brushed fingers along the stubbles beneath his cheekbone, but the skin was intact, and no damage could be detected under his touch. 

“I think... I think I killed him,” Will said, his throat squeezing dryly at the realization. The Dragon was dead. He, Will, had ripped out his artery with his teeth. “God.” And he, Will, had been stabbed and scratched and beat down, until the pure, white snow drowned in the crimson of blood. 

Will's breath hitched as he cast wide eyes to Hannibal. He had attacked The Dragon, pushed him, scratched and bit him, and even now, sitting here, he could still feel the pulsing, shredded throat beneath his fangs. “I killed him.”

He rose from his seat, and Hannibal stood when he did. Will allowed himself to step forward, as his Alpha closed the rest of the distance with a quick stride of those elegant legs. They were so close, shoe noses touching and desperate eyes searching and deeply inhaling to collect the other's scent. Ocean eyes met deep amber, and Will's lungs filled only with shallow breaths as he reached out for the labels of Hannibal's jacket. 

“I enjoyed it.” The confession was a fierce whisper, followed by a needful brush of Will's lips against Hannibal. A memory's touch only, but a sob broke from his throat at the brief slide of warm, soft lips on warm, soft lips. “I killed someone,” Will wheezed against Hannibal's open, panting lips as his shoulders started to tremble. “Intimately.” 

And suddenly, his body was enfolded by Hannibal's embracing arms, sheltering and strong around him, his face buried in the crook of his neck. “Shh,” came a hush to his ear, and hands stroked through the Omega's curls before cupping the back of his neck with careful fingers. The shadow of the sensation was enough to make Will shudder, and to make his eyes wet in pure despair. He was here, with him, and the echo of their pain was slowly leaking from their pores as he fit perfectly against his Alpha. Fuck. God, he had missed him. He had missed him to the point of devastation, insanity, self-destruction. Absolute fucking madness.

“Ohh,” he moaned, pushing his nose beneath the Alpha's chin as fingers tangled in his hair. “Oh God, Hannibal.” His body was trembling so thoroughly he could hear his teeth rattling inside his mouth. And Hannibal soothed him with hands on his hair and neck. Hands on his shoulders and his arms. Hands that shook, but touched him with certainty, as he breathed love and pain into the Omega's ear. “Shh, Will. I have you. I have you now,” Hannibal whispered against him, breaking him from head to toe as the words cracked under strain of his mate's voice. 

Those hands that soothed, held and caressed him, however, never once grazed the skin of his back. “How bad is it?”, Will croaked against Hannibal's throat, and felt his mate's lungs quivering inside his chest. “You're dying,” Hannibal whispered, both rough and gentle against his ear, and Will's fingers released their grip on Hannibal's jacket. He froze as his arms slid down to hang useless beside his body as the room suddenly seemed to pull vacuum around him. When Hannibal moved back to look at him, at last Will understood what he saw in those eyes. 

“I'm dying,” he repeated, his voice void of color, as his fingers hooked aimlessly on the rim of Hannibal's pockets. “Just like that?” He had fought The Dragon and he had won. He had defeated him. Yes, he had not come out unscathed, but a little blood loss wouldn't... “Someone will find me,” he fired, remembering how he had slid into the deep darkness of unconsciousness in the bloody snow of his front yard. The sun would rise, and somebody...

“They did,” Hannibal broke through the memories. “You have been in a comatose state at the local hospital for two days now.” A little buzz zoomed across Hannibal's face, as if lightning struck through the energy that flowed around him. Will felt that lightning bolt between his own eyes, as every cell in his body shrunk in it itself before expanding. A pulse of his body and mind. “What?”, he mumbled confusedly, hooking two fingers inside Hannibal's sleeve as if fearing he would disappear, would the distance grow between them. “I just got here.”

Hannibal reached out in return, fisting Will's shirt between his fingers without pulling. “Here, yes,” he answered him, and Will could see the strain of his mate's muscles beneath his pale skin. Amber eyes flickered briefly to his lips, before they met his own gaze. “Your wife made the decision to have you brought back to me,” Hannibal said, and the lightning was followed by a hopeful crack of sky-splitting thunder. 

Will swallowed at the words, his mouth dry, his arms weak. Back. Back to Hannibal. Because Will was dying, wounded, anemic, unconscious, and the world knew there was only one that could cure him. 

Molly knew.

“So I'm... on my way?”, Will whispered, to both himself and his mate as he grabbed the sides of Hannibal's silk waistcoat. Hannibal nodded and moved closer into his touch as he placed an open hand on Will's sternum. “I was able to connect with you here, because you're getting closer,” he said, and Will's eyes widened as strong fingers stroked along his glands. “Where am I?”, he asked, frantic as he tried to listen for any sounds coming from beyond the chamber inside his head. He was already traveling, moving, getting closer and closer to his Alpha.

God, God, oh, God yes.

“The FBI is escorting you here,” Hannibal said, curling protective fingers in the nap of Will's curls. “You were flown in by helicopter, and you should be in an ambulance by now.” Will watched his mate's Adam's apple work beneath the skin, and wondered what the world would look like through those earthly eyes. “FBI?”, Will repeated with a stunned expression. “Helicopter?” He could have laughed. Since when was he considered a big enough deal for those kinds of expenses? He remembered when he had been a consultant, and every rental car and motel room had been one from the dusty, lower shelf. 

Hannibal pushed gently against the tendrils of his neck until their open mouths met again in a kiss that was desperate and wet, as he licked dominantly into Will's mouth. Will whimpered and moaned brokenly against his mate and fluttered his lashes against his moist, lower lids. He clawed at Hannibal's clothes and hair with a high whine in his throat, because all he wanted was closer and more. He wanted to climb so deep inside his mate he would disappear from the world. Entirely and forever. 

Hannibal pulled back, lips lingering and cheeks tinged on otherwise pale, lifeless skin. “You've lost a lot of blood,” he said, grasping the curls behind Will's ears on both sides as he forced the pain behind his eyes into his mate. “And you were too far, too long, without me.” Will's breath stuttered as Hannibal's eyes dripped like open faucets, filled with tears and blood and torment that swam in the whites of his eyes like hellish blots of red and black watercolor. The Devil locked in his own hell.

“Your heart is giving up,” Hannibal said, the edges around his words crenelated as he placed one, open palm wholly against Will's chest. “They are barely keeping you alive.” The Omega felt, in that moment, what touched Hannibal's hand on the other side of his ribcage, and it was weak, unsteady, like a dying, fragile bird fluttering its wings. He was losing life, he realized. He was sinking like a damaged ship, where every second counted.

“I'll make it,” he whispered, pressing his own hand on top of Hannibal's as he gritted his teeth with all the determination he had strength for. “I'll make it back.” Hannibal stared at him, his eyes dim and his whites red. His fingers against Will's chest twitched, as if wanting to dig under the skin and squeeze around the failing organ beneath. And Will tightened his grip on Hannibal's hand, desperate to feel an echo of the skin that could heal him.

“I promised you,” he said, wishing nothing more than to ease the torment he watched swimming beneath Hannibal's skin. “I might not walk in, but I won't die.” Because he wouldn't. Will refused to be defeated after he had already won. They were here, together, already. He had found the Omega in him, and his Alpha had found him in the dark. He was stronger than ever before.

Hannibal's features buzzed around the lines, like a moving, pixelated image. His nose, his eyebrows, the lines around his mouth, they flickered sharply on the skin, forking and blurring and breaking, as he kept his eyes deep and red on Will's. “Is this your grief?”, Will then whispered, bringing his hand to stroke down the vibrating skin of Hannibal's cheeks. His hand was caught by Hannibal's, and pressed firmly against the bones of his mate's sharp skull.

“What do you see?”, Hannibal asked, mimicking the volume of Will's voice, pressing his fingers in between the Omega's. “Grief,” Will answered honestly, and Hannibal's lips jerked, before he lowered his eyes, and inhaled deeply against the skin of Will's hand. “Then I'd imagine it is,” he said, and Will felt a shiver running up his spine at the sight. Hannibal was made of glass, dried clay, chalk. Hard and strong on the outside, but one push would shatter him on the hardwood floors. 

He had done this. He, Will, had made him a ghost, a shadow of the man he really was, with hollow bones and paper skin. He hadn't considered this happening, because Hannibal had always been an indestructible force to him. He hadn't considered this, because he hadn't wanted to see it. He had been purposely blind. Selfish. Cruel.

He reached out with both hands to cup his mate's face, stroking along the defined bones of his cheeks.  
“If we touch here, will it ease the pain?”, he said, and Hannibal sighed, leaning himself closer until his nose grazed Will's temple. “No,” he said, shaking his head lightly against Will's. “But it might distract us from it.” Will huffed a smile and closed his eyes as Hannibal's lips opened against the skin of his neck. A tongue flicked against his pulsing point, barely responsive under the skin, and Will reached for the back of Hannibal's jacket as he gripped his fingers into the fabric.

Their embrace lasted, as did their silence, both of them afraid, pained, and unwilling to let go of the other. Will pressed his forehead beneath Hannibal's chin, as lazy lips tasted his skin along the length of his throat. The Omega sighed and squeezed fingers into Hannibal's upper arms. 

“You sent him after my family,” he said, after the thought became too heavy for his mind to bear. Will swallowed back the sudden nerves that played along the walls of his belly, because he needed to know. It was an established fact that he could not be without his Alpha, but that didn't mean that nothing else mattered. If Hannibal was the still that same man he had been forced to walk away from all these years ago, he knew he would have to fear for himself and anyone around him, for the rest of his existence. The idea tasted sour in his veins.

“No,” Hannibal denied grudgingly against his collarbone, and Will nudged his nose beneath the Alpha's jaw. “You knew about his plans,” he hissed against the bones, and felt Hannibal's nails digging punishingly into the back of his neck. ”I warned you,” the Alpha growled low against the skin beneath his ear. “And your family is safe because of it.” There was a scrape of sharp teeth against his skin, and Will whimpered at the feeling as his fingers hooked behind the back of Hannibal's collar.

“A decision of the last moment,” he panted his reply, as Hannibal's fingers raked over his skull with a demanding pressure of his hands. “Yes,” was his answer, sharp and hot from his lips, before he jerked Will's head back from his skin with fingers in his mate's messy curls. Will looked at him, saw his blown pupils shine like raven feathers, and licked his lips as he allowed the pull on his hair to tilt his chin. “You feared for my safety,” he challenged the Alpha. “Or perhaps my mental state, after.” 

“Yes,” Hannibal was quick and shameless in his answer, and Will watched the narrow rim of golden amber burning back into him, making his skin warm and his stomach tight. Hannibal was Hannibal, always, but perhaps he hadn't lied when he had said that he was no longer curious about Will. Old habits die hard, but in that moment, with that phone call, he had decided not to play the game.

“You were so tempted to just let it happen,” Will said, brushing a strand of ash blond hair behind his mate's ear, and watched Hannibal's lips tighten. “I wanted it to happen,” The Alpha admitted, eyes tight and hard on Will. “I wanted you to lose them.” The confession was not spoken as one. Hannibal knew Will knew. The hidden words were the ones that spoke so much louder. The one that said that despite Hannibal's desires, he had chosen differently. He had chosen Will over himself.

Fingers tangled in the mop of curls on top of Will's head, guiding him to look up, straight into Hannibal's flickering eyes. “Did you miss me?”, The Alpha asked him, fierce yet broken, and Will knew exactly how much this was cracking the smooth, porcelain shell of his mate. He was vulnerable, rejectable, defeatable, and those things were all emotions on a scale Hannibal hadn't allowed himself to put any weight on, for many, many years.

“Hannibal,” Will whined, as fingertips massaged against his skull.“I'm dying without you.” The meaning was open for interpretation, he knew, and Will allowed it to be. Hannibal grimaced, but released his grip on Will's hair, lowering his hands to press against Will's collarbone.

“Then why are you such a stubborn boy?”, he asked, almost pleasantly resentful, and his fingers curled lightly around Will's throat. Will felt the fingers on his windpipe as he swallowed, and Hannibal smiled, baring sharp teeth. “Because you are not ready to give up that life.” His mate said, almost gently, but his jaw remained locked. “There are still a few dead ends inside the labyrinth of your mind.” The Alpha brushed two fingers along the scar on Will forehead. The meaning wasn't lost.

“But you are so close to coming home, aren't you?”, Hannibal whispered, his voice slicing sharply through Will's ear as he whimpered weakly at the words, the tone, the hole in his heart that pulsed and begged for that one thing. Home. 

Hannibal pressed his cheeks against Will's, fingers still digging into his throat, caressing along his glands. “So close to embracing who you truly are,” he spoke against Will's temple, and Will trembled as he closed his eyes. His Omega. He had experienced his beast alongside his humanity, and it had clicked together like two broken shards. 

“This is your becoming,” Hannibal spoke, words like a serpent, and Will huffed into his Alpha hair before he drew back. Becoming. Hannibal had always talked about his true form, the real shape of him, and how he had yet to be who he was destined to become. Somewhere it had always stung, to believe there was more to him, that others could see, but he, himself could not reach. As if this version of himself was... lacking.

“Fuck my becoming,” he growled into Hannibal's face before he gripped the paisley tie in his hand, and yanked it towards him until their mouth met, hungrily, in the middle. Their lips pressed together, hard and greedily, as the fangs clashed and their tongues slid into the wet heat of their mouths. A memory, still, but it was real enough to make Will's skin tighten in pleasure and goosebumps.

“I feel closer to you here, than that time in the shower,” he murmured between kisses as Hannibal chased after his lips with a pull of his teeth. Will wound his hands in Hannibal's hair, as Hannibal's fingers curled into the belt loops on his jeans. “Because you are unconscious,” The Alpha panted into Will's open mouth, leaning his forehead against the Omega's as he pressed their hips together with a pull on Will's waistband. “Similar to a daydream not reaching as deep and wholly into the subconscious mind, compared to a dream experienced in a state of sleep.”

Will felt Hannibal's hardness press against his thigh, as his own cock quickly filled out in the confinement of his jeans. “God, Hannibal,” he moaned, pressing their lips back together as he stroked passionate hands into his mate's hair and down the back of his neck. “We need to touch,” Will groaned against Hannibal's lips as the Alpha had started to maneuver them towards the desk. The moment Will's ass touched the edge, he shifted back to sit atop the furniture. Wholly, this time, instead of the many moments in this office where he had only leaned against the wooden surface.

“I need to touch you,” he moaned, wrapping his legs around his Alpha's hips as Hannibal's lips trailed down his chin, and against the sensitive flesh of his throat. Hands slid up his thighs and the feeling was amazing, and arousing and beautiful.

Also...

“It's not enough,” Will gritted his teeth as tears threatened to spill down his cheeks. This wasn't like it was when they were together. Really together. That was pure bliss and light wrapped in darkness, and endless pleasure on the edge of pain. It was everything. And this was all of that, but just out of reach, just on the other side of the veil, a fingertip away. It wasn't going to satisfy his needs for closeness and touch, for Hannibal. Nor would it heal them, like they both needed healing. “And it will never be,” Hannibal kissed against his throat. “until you come back to me.”

Will moaned when the Alpha's hands squeezed the bulge in his jeans, and he pushed his hips forward to capture more of the teasing touch. “Hannibal.” And the name came out as a sob, desperate, begging, filled with his regrets. “I'll die without you.” Hannibal pressed his teeth against his mate's shoulder at the confession, as he growled through his nose. Tenderness and anger, love and spite. “Quite literally in this moment.” The Alpha growled at him, and Will's breath shuddered as he clung his arms around his mate's narrow waist.

“When they bring me in...”, he croaked, and Hannibal pulled back the teeth from his skin to look at him. His eyes were black, close to bleeding red, but the pale lips shone pink with their kisses. “I'll make it better,” he promised, and Will felt his dying heart expand until it left nothing else inside him. Treasured, cherished, desired. Fuck, how he wanted it. “Yes, yes.” He nodded helplessly, as Hannibal gentle bit into his earlobe.

“I'll have you,” he said, devotion and arousal floating atop a thick layer of his fear. “Yes,” Will breathed, closing his eyes as he pressed his nose alongside Hannibal's, who vibrated with a low rubble that rose from his chest. “I'll wake you,” he pledged, and Will gasped when soft lips trailed along his cheek. It tingled, oddly so, and Will knew Hannibal was brushing his mouth along the length of his ripped cheek. He wondered if it showed, to his mate, in this moment.

Then, he blinked, and pulled back to see Hannibal's lips were not stained with anything other than Will's saliva. No blood. Not here. “Wait,” Will said, knitting his eyebrows at his mate's words. “I'll be unconscious when they bring me in.” He watched Hannibal's eyes flicker from black to amber. “Do you think they're just going to let you...?” He didn't finish the sentence, but watched one side of Hannibal's lips pull up at his innocence, as he folded two strong arms around Will's body.

“Why do you think they're bringing you to me?”, Hannibal spoke against his cheek, brushing the skin as his lips moved. “What can I give you that they can't?” Will closed his eyes as his head fell back at the jolt of pleasure that ripped through his body. His broken “Fuck”, was an exclaim, instead of an answer to the rhetorical question, but Hannibal huffed against his ear despite it, as his fingers started to work on the buttons of Will's shirt. “We just have to wait,” he spoke gently, “And you have to hold on.” The hushed tone was a plea, and Will nodded feverishly against him.

He pulled Hannibal's shirt from his pants and slid both his hands under the fabric, over soft, fragile skin. “I'm holding on.”


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Where are you?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Will heard the distant rumble of a vehicle purring from under him. He heard the steady, slow beep of a machine and sirens wailing from far above his head. There was the mumbling of people, the screeching of tires, centripetal force pushing at his body._
> 
>  
> 
> _Will heard the world outside his mind._
> 
>  
> 
> _“I'm coming.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SO sorry, guys! I just came back from a holiday, and I had totally planned to update during it, but the Wifi there was pretty much NON-existent! (It was a tiny farm, I don't know what I'd expected...) I tried and tried but it didn't work, and now I am finally back online (Holy shit, it is hard not to be online) and I already missed so much! NOOOO!
> 
> I hope to make it up to you with this chapter, because it is actually two > double in length!  
> I also did not yet have the opportunity to reply to your messages and comments (because no Wifi >.<), but I promise I will answer all of them, and I am always so super grateful and happy with all the love and attention! It is just gonna take some time, but I'll get back on track! Promise! Love you guys!

_“Close your eyes, Will.”_

_Hannibal's voice flooded him from the inside out, between near and very far away, and its sound guided Will further from the darkness of his own mind._

_“Breathe through your nose.”_

_Will breathed and the blissful scent of his Alpha stroked him internally; intense enough to be real, but Will was just aware enough to know it could not originate from outside of himself. There, beyond the warm, safe familiarity of his own head, something tinged the air. A movement coming from behind the window. A sound from beyond the wall._

_And then, a scent best described as stinging and sterile._

_“Concentrate.”_

_And he tried so hard to comply as Hannibal's warm thighs rested against his, and his breath stroked the back of his neck. He kept his eyes closed and pushed, searched for anything beyond the membrane of this room. He did concentrate, but it was hard to muster the conviction to find a way out while fearing what would lie on the other side._

_“Listen,” Hannibal's voice was urging, commanding, and fear caused a hidden tremor in the back of his throat. His thighs squeezed tighter around Will's hips, and even without touching his chest, Will could feel the Alpha's heartbeat rising loud and strong above his own._

_He had to succeed. He had to fight for himself, and he had to fight for Hannibal. It was so easy to melt back into the Alpha's embrace and let himself tumble into the bottomless pit, threatening to keep him until his heart would give up, and he would slip from his body completely._

_“Where are you?”_

_Will heard the distant rumble of a vehicle purring from under him. He heard the steady, slow beep of a machine and sirens wailing from far above his head. There was the mumbling of people, the screeching of tires, centripetal force pushing at his body._

_Will heard the world outside his mind._

_“I'm coming.”_

**

At first, they had simply stayed close against the desk as Hannibal had pressed their lips together in languid, unhurried kisses that Will savored with a sigh in the depths of his throat. Hannibal had touched him from the back of his neck, to the lengths of his sides, to the denim-clad flesh of his thighs. Squeezing him, rubbing, feeling whatever had remained undamaged, and leaving Will to respond with mindless surrender and desperate, speechless need.

He had rubbed one cheek against Hannibal's with the force and pressure of pure animal affection, moaning wordlessly as he clawed and gripped at his mate with his eyes closed and his cheeks flushed. He rocked his hips forward the moment Hannibal brushed a hand over the bulge that was his hidden, begging cock, and whined like a helpless beast when his mate took back his fingers from his strained crotch.

“Not yet,” Hannibal hushed the pitiful noise that brushed through Will's nose, but kept an open palm against the tented fabric of Will's jeans, just to feel him grinding in an open search for pleasure. “We'll be together soon.” They kissed with open mouths, searching for the illusion of heat and contact as their tongues brushed and stroked inside their fused mouths. Will shivered in his Alpha's arms, weak in all possible ways as he rested his weight in the strong embrace, unwilling to have one cruel inch between them.

Fuck, this was the real pain. Being so close but needing so much more and not being able to reach it. All the doubt, the regret, the guilt was pushed down, and in its place was something big, furious, howling and screeching. It was need. It was desire. It was a wild craving to be and belong. 

Will felt Hannibal's hard cock answering against his thigh and whimpered as he reached down to rub his hand against the dampening fabric of his Alpha's trousers. But his mate snarled at the contact, grabbed Will's wrist and yanked his hand away from already full hardness behind wool and silk. 

“That would be very counterproductive,” Hannibal warned through his teeth, and Will was thrilled to hear the strain in his voice, the pants of his breath. His Alpha was just like him, thoroughly aroused and ready to burst from nothing but the ghost of their union. 

“Yeah,” Will sighed a hiss, eyes down as his lips stretched over his fangs. “I guess it would.” He leaned forward to rub his nose along Hannibal's temple, pushing their bodies close, but not enough to cause friction. “You still have to...”, Will's lips stretched in a smile over bare teeth, knowing Hannibal must have felt his fangs against his cheek, “... _mate_ me awake.”

He felt mindless with the fabricated pleasure that brushed along the endless torture that was life without Hannibal. And there was nothing he could do but revel in the crumbs of his mate's presence. He laughed when Hannibal's hands came to fist his hair, adapting a look of perfect disapproval. “I do not assign any fairytale qualities to these circumstances,” he said, and the little spark in his amber eyes was not plagued by any forked distortion. 

“No?”, Will questioned as his hands curled around his Alpha's waist. “Beauty and the Beast would be fitting.” He was teasing, high on the idea of pleasure, and it made Hannibal's honey eyes liquid with joy. The Alpha kept his eyebrow up, an unspoken challenge as Will sank deeper into the sticky warmth of that shimmering gold. “Assign the parts as you see fit,” he said with pursed lips and watched his mate's mouth twitch as he raked hands through Will's brown curls.

Hannibal's fingers touched the bridge of his nose, the swell of his lips, the flow of his chin, as Will watched him, felt every touch he received and moved to meet every form of contact between them. He saw those amber eyes starting to flash brighter in the sharp lines of Hannibal's sockets, and the buzz of distortion became clearer within the deeper colors of Hannibal's skin and clothes. Their eyes met, and Will saw his Alpha watching him with similar curiosity. “You're getting closer,” Hannibal answered for the both of them, their banter forgotten as his fingers traced the curve of Will's ear. “I can envision you more clearly.” And as his Alpha spoke the words, Will could see the lines around Hannibal eyes crinkle deeper, sharper, more alive and sick in the same instant.

Will breathed in deep and felt the room shudder beneath his feet. The walls shook, the air purred, the temperature dropped. He was moving. Traveling. Transported in a vehicle. Hannibal's hand pressed to Will's chest as he licked his dry lips with the pink tip of his tongue. “You heart is very weak,” he said, his mouth pulling tight but his voice steady and soft. “But I can feel you nearing.”

There was a distant throbbing sensation creeping up on the Omega, stringing up from his back and the right side of his face as Will felt the room growing stuffier around him. Pure alcohol. Gasoline. A tinge of copper. “Me too,” he breathed, feeling the walls narrowing around him. He didn't want to go. Hannibal wouldn't be there, would he wake up now. Not yet. There would just be pain and blood and doctors that couldn't help. And Will didn't want to feel pain anymore. He was tired, exhausted, and he no longer felt he had the strength to take the hollow, sick suffering that was their separation.

Hannibal watched him with unseeing eyes before he folded his hands loosely around Will's throat and felt a weak fluttering under his touch. His eyes shimmered more and more like the tiger, the lion, the wolf Will knew lived underneath, and the beastly sight was hot water on a frozen heart. “You'll soon be strong enough to wake,” Hannibal said, pressing his forehead to Will's as he whispered in a hot stream of air that brushed between the Omega's eyes. “We have to try and bring you out.” He was determined, tense but gentle as his fingertips pressed against the weak artery beneath Will's skin. “You have to wake up.”

Will swallowed against the warm fingers before leaning against the grip to place a lingering kiss on Hannibal's lips. The pressure on his windpipe, even when imaginary, became a struggle to withstand, forcing him to pull back. “Can't I stay?”, he whispered against Hannibal's cheek. “Just until I'm there with you?” This time, it was Hannibal who leaned in to capture his mate's lips, sighing deeply into the kiss before he pulled back and released Will altogether. The air against Will's throat without the Alpha's shielding hands felt cold, naked, and as he watched Hannibal take a step back, he felt a tight pull from behind his own ribs.

“No,” was Hannibal's resolute answer, perfectly controlled within the lines of his exterior. His image was clearer now, steadier, and so was the bruised sheen breaking through his sickly pale skin. The Alpha pressed his bitten lips together before he spoke, as if trying to find something within to steady him. “The chances you'll die or stay in this comatose state forever will grow greater with every moment you don't fight for your life.”

And Will watched his Alpha's image buzzing before his eyes, as if slowly crumbling, shedding little pieces of himself around their feet, the underlying image of the fear behind his words. While the image became clearer and sharper before him with every minute passing, it appeared more damaged all the same. Sick, and weak and tired. Hannibal was dying, right along with him. Will felt a tight snake of dread coiling around him like a ten foot python, strong enough to snap his spine, and blinked away the pressure behind his eyes as he swallowed against his dry throat. 

“I need you with me,” Hannibal said, his near-whisper sharp with angry despair, and Will bit the inside of his lip as he felt a deep shiver of both overwhelming need and anguish pulsing desperately from the backs of his legs to the tip of his spine. God. He understood the desperation, badly so, because it lived vigorously within them both. “Hannibal.” His name was a plea, a whine, a prayer on Will's tongue and eyes got so lost in the endless pit of Hannibal's fire, cool where he was hot, hot where he was cool, dark where everything was too bright, a pillar to support the roof of ash, threatening to crush him with its weight. Hannibal took Will's fingers between his own as his lids lowered, and Will felt absorbed by the smoldering, possessive gaze down Hannibal's straight nose. “Will, I want you with me.” 

The moment was frozen, a separate scene in a different world, where everything was dark but for Hannibal's glowing eyes on him. And Will wanted to cling to him, mind, body and soul, so tight they would grow intertwined, like the curling stems of bamboo. But Will didn't cling, he breathed instead, eyes heavy, lips parted, as his entire body twitched with yearning. Hannibal needed him. Hannibal wanted him. He had known it, but never had he allowed for him to believe it too, and that was where the fear kept coiling around Will's throat. Around his heart. Believing was acknowledging, deliberately choosing or turning away, and gaining something you could lose. 

“Try,” Hannibal pleaded openly, and as if overcome with sudden X-ray vision, Will watched the outline of his Alpha's skeleton flickering through the skin. Naked, vulnerable, splintering around the marrow. “Yes,” he said, his fingers digging hard into his own palms as his voice trembled with promise. “Just tell me how.” 

Will watched Hannibal's eyes quivering in their sockets as he reached for him. “Concentrate on your senses,” the Alpha said before placing his hands on the back of Will's neck and leading them both away from the desk with a gentle push of two fingers beneath the skull. The touch made Will weak in his bones as he moved towards the gray sofa near the windows. He had never used it for its purpose as a comforting seat, but he'd always dumped his coat and bag rather unceremoniously onto those cushions. Understanding so much more of the Alpha today, he knew he was lucky Hannibal had felt their connection from the start, or he would probably have ended up a roast. 

“Lie down,” Hannibal said, and held Will's shoulders when he turned in preparation to sink himself back onto the sofa. “On your front,” the Alpha's voice stroked around him as he was handled with strong, gentle fingers, turned with guiding hands on his hips and waist, until the undamaged side of Will's face pressed against the cushions and he was stretched out onto his belly. Like this, it was easier to feel the ghost of a sting on the shredded skin of his back. Like this, it was harder to breathe, to see, to live and stay inside his memories. 

Hannibal wanted them to bring him in, and then up, out.

“Try, Will,” the Alpha's low voice came from behind him and Will realized the stiff couch had not been purchased for comfort, but to discourage patients from using it. “Tell me how,” Will breathed against the dampening fabric. “Help me.” His nails dug into the cushions as he felt a hand sliding up his calves over his jeans. “Listen,” Hannibal's voice commanded him with a whisper near his ear, and the memory of his shape was warm against his skin as the Alpha came to straddle his hips and pressed two hands on his shoulder blades to keep him in place. Will knew it was to weigh him down, to ground him, to push him more solidly up into his mind, but the contact was enough to bring all sorts of stirring images behind Will's eyes as he fought not to push his ass back against Hannibal's crotch.

“Focus,” his mate warned him, taking pressure back from his pelvis and Will groaned into the sofa.

“Close your eyes, Will.”

**

Alana stood on the curb outside the Hospital and watched the empty road before her. Her arms were folded around herself as she rubbed her hands along her shoulders, as if offering herself the comfort no one else was willing to provide. The sky was a friendly blue, and the world around her appeared sunny and bright, with no chill detectable in the early spring breeze. She kicked an empty cigarette carton with her maroon pumps, as she stood and waited. 

It wouldn't be long now. She had been waiting all day, but the moment was soon to arrive. She could hear the faint echo of the ambulance siren getting closer and closer to the deserted, narrow street that was positioned just outside the back of the Hospital. Closer to the basement, fewer stairs, fewer eyes.

She heard the staff mumbling nervously behind her, where four of her best security guards were currently smoking a cigarette, armed to the teeth with imposing rifles. They were anxious, she could tell, and she too felt a tight pull of unease sizzling behind her sternum. Running a hospital for the criminally insane had never been a dull experience, but ever since Will had taken up a place in Hannibal's life again, she woke up every morning with a tight pinch of fear in her throat.

A fear for herself and for her family, to die.

She picked imaginary dust off her black and white checkered suit and kept her eyes to the left, where she was expecting a speeding ambulance to come around the corner. Will was coming. Will was injured, dying, and he was being brought back to his Alpha as a last resort to save his life. Contact with Hannibal would possibly cure his fatal injuries, where he would otherwise succumb to his wounds. 

They would be placed together, to heal and merge, survive, and then... what? Will couldn't just move in here and stay, could he? He would be a fool for wanting to, for giving up his freedom for a man not even deserving of his life. Hannibal would never get out of captivity, she would fight tooth and nail to ensure it. 

If Will lived through this, they would cozy up for a few days, maybe weeks, before he would be healed enough to be able to leave. Would he? Or would he move some place nearby and pay regular visits? Would he go back to his wife?

Alana sighed deep enough to make her shiver as the ambulance finally turned into the far end of the street. Will was an old friend, and in her own way, she had always felt affection for him. It was for this reason she felt a harsh jab of guilt when she looked at the drained, pale face carried out on the stretcher, jostling the unconscious frame of a very poorly Will Graham, and wondered if it wouldn't be all for the best if he just didn't _make it_.

“Follow me.”

**

Will felt the plastic cover of the foam mattress pressing evasively against his cheek and forehead, as he breathed in the synthetic scent of the material. A tube had been removed from his throat, and the oxygen that had flowed easily into his lungs was now reduced to a bare tremble of the hairs inside his nostrils. He was out of the car, off the machines and felt his body shaking as a squeaking sound of wheels rose from underneath him.

The breeze on his skin fell silent, and Will felt stone walls, cool and dark and familiar, taking away the noise, the light. He smelled lemon scented soap from the floors, heard the buzzing from the lights ahead, and breathed the dust embedded deeply into the creases of ancient, stone bricks. He heard a dozen footsteps following behind him, and he felt the pain in his throat as he tried to swallow back the saliva that continuously dripped from the corner of his open mouth.

All the same, he felt the shape of Hannibal on his back, his hands and hips pinning him down. He felt his Alpha's weight, heard his breath, bathed in his scent as he surrendered to the submissive position he had placed him in. One that matched Will's placement on the stretcher, his back unburdened and his body steady. 

“You're so close,” Hannibal breathed from the back of his mind, from the office, their shared space. Will could no longer find the voice to reply, but he heard his own sharp intake of breath as his stretcher turned a corner. A faint buzz crept over him, dipping under clothes, beneath his skin, and stretched through every inch of flesh. It was a siren in the dark waves of the ocean that had Will trapped. It was a caress over his wounded soul. It was Hannibal.

“Do you feel that?”, his mate rasped against the shell of his ear, and Will realized his body had started to shake. Both on the stretcher and in the office. Behind him came a newfound warmth, a source of firefly light that stroked Will like a lover's hands. “I feel you,” Hannibal breathed against him and the cutting snare that was spun so tight around Will's frame loosened, separated from flesh and mind until, at last, he could breathe.

“You're here.”

**

Will felt his consciousness shifting between worlds, lying flat on the sofa in Hannibal's office while simultaneously being wheeled through the corridors of the hospital on a squeaky, shaky stretcher. He felt Hannibal's weight against his lower back where he could also feel the hospital sheets placed gently over his bandaged skin. He felt the flannel shirt and the jeans on his frame, while also aware of the papery hospital gown that reached below his knees and was open at the back.

Another corner, and the echo of the squeaking wheels and hurried footsteps swirled around him. The frantic voices above his head became louder, faster, inaudible still, but rising over the hum of all the trembling noise. The tension clenched, the cord pulled tight, the heat clustered in his belly and cold death was quivered from his core to the outer rim of his skin. He was so, so close to home.

Hannibal kept him steady on the gray, sturdy couch, grounding him and keeping him in the position that copied the real world as gentle, strong fingers stroked through Will's curls. His cheek bumped against the sterile mattress cover, his body shook within the metal frame and his ears caught the noise like a flock of seagulls swarming around his head. 

And then, the wheels stopped. 

Hannibal's thighs clenched firmer around Will's hips as he squeezed a hand on his shoulder and let out a shaky growl through his nose. He was almost there, and Will quivered at the sharp but lively stir inside his skull, shredding the blind darkness and his beast as it emerged from the shadows of his mind. The hidden blackness that had swallowed the Omega after Will had lost his consciousness, began to unravel as his wolf stumbled forward, damaged, wounded, nearing death. No light in his blue eyes, caked blood in his fur, ribs showing through the thin coat.  
Will saw him drifting, heard the high pitch note trembling from his dry nose and watched him fight to stay upright on his large paws. Not in the office, not in the prison, but in the blinking lights of the foyer he'd found his wolf. Between conscious and far away. He felt the tiniest flame inside him flickering bright, and his heart suddenly ached with desire to reach out and help him. To protect him, nurture him, make him strong.

“Hold on, Will,” he heard someone speak near his ear, unsure of who spoke the words as noise and touch bled through from both worlds at once. “Don't let go.” There was the faint sound of mumbling above his head as voices rose in volume and temperament, and then the sound of mechanic clicks of opening locks made Will's skin tight as many feet in heavy boots shuffled franticly around him. “You're here,” lips whispered against his ear, and Will shivered until his toes curled and a whimper trembled from his nose. “Yes.” He could feel red blood pumping through his shrunken, black veins, and he could feel the papery lungs in his chest unfold with air that cleared out the dust. He did not know where his words and sounds rose into the air, but he heard the heavy door moving as the stretcher started to shake again.

Just a push over the threshold and the barbed wire that wound so cruelly around his fading life loosened around the bones. Will felt a hot trickle of pure and pulsing strength, true bliss thick as oil, spilling from behind his eyes and spreading from his crown to in between his toes. Inside the prison, his ears popped, his nostrils flared, his lashes fluttered. “I'm here,” he gasped to Hannibal in the office, and felt his mate's Adam's apple work as he swallowed against the back of Will's neck. “Yes,” the Alpha hissed brokenly, both tortured and ecstatic, and Will knew he was present in his cell, watching him in this moment.

“Back against the glass, Lecter. We're cuffing you,” a voice came from beside Will, and the sound echoed against the office ceiling as both Will and Hannibal tensed at the outside intrusion. Hannibal growled against Will's neck, but the Omega heard the noise coming from behind the thick glass, sounding furious and terrifying, and felt every muscle fighting to twitch to life. 

“There is no time,” Hannibal hissed with outrage from within both worlds. “He is dying.” The wounded cry of the Alpha did not sound anything like the man Will knew as Hannibal Lecter, and down on the stretcher he tried to find the weak flutter of his heart, the half-empty flow in his veins, and, through that, find his strength. Hannibal's presence aroused a violent whirlwind of life inside his chest, but with the glass still between them, Will could feel it wasn't enough. His body was still lacking strength to reach out, and jump in. 

He needed his Alpha, all of him, everywhere, on his skin, inside his body, healing him wherever he could reach. And he needed him now. Now. 

There was a disruption of mumbling around him, and Will felt Hannibal tensing against his body. “Shoot me between the eyes if I move an inch from this spot,” he heard the Alpha growl, a plea stabbing through the words as his tone stayed absolutely feral. “But don't waste another moment bringing him here.”

Hannibal held his breath and Will squeezed his eyes shut tight as one second of silence hung in the air, heavy enough to crush and destroy, would it last too long. Then, he could smell the scent of Alana's flowery perfume, feel the warmth of her skin, and he knew she was there, closely inspecting him with those sky blue eyes. “Quickly,” she ordered with the singular word, pitched and tight in her throat, and the stretcher started to roll as Hannibal let out a growl behind the glass. “Hands against the wall, Lecter,” Will heard a male voice commanding his mate, and even against the foam mattress, his upper lips twitched in desire to roll over his teeth.

The lock clicked, and the scent that washed over Will was one that filled all the broken cracks and shards inside him with hot, liquid honey. Gluing and erasing the sharp, cold, bitter and broken place inside. “Hannibal.” Both himself and the Alpha shuddered uncontrollably on the sofa, breathing in deep, whimpering shamelessly with longing, grinding teeth in pure relief. If only he could have moved, Will knew he would not have let another second gone to waste. He would have reached for every inch of his mate with all he had to offer, and on the plastic mattress cover his knees were twitching with that Earth-shattering desire. “Off the stretcher. On the bed,” Hannibal growled at the guards from his place against the back wall. Will couldn't see, but he could hear him, he could feel him, in the cell and against his back, still.

The stretcher stopped rolling, and there was a moment of uncertainty as guards mumbled above his head. “Now,” Hannibal hissed with true threat and sharp teeth that even Will could feel seeping into his bones. His weak heart fluttered at the nearness and he wished more than ever he could find the strength to open his eyes. See his mate in his true image. “Do it,” Alana bit an order from behind the glass. “Lay him down on his front.” And the stretcher started rolling until it bumped against the metal frame of what must have been Hannibal's bed. Hands came to lift under his shoulders, his hips, his knees, and Will growled against the sofa in the office as Hannibal's sharp teeth slid against the skin of his neck. 

In the cell, Hannibal was letting out a deep, warning rumble that rose from his chest with promises of violence, and Will's skin sang at the sound, smooth as butter to his ears and down his neck. He heard the threatening click of a gun, and knew his Alpha was surrounded and threatened with multiple firearms as he watched his lifeless mate being moved into his cell. Then, the rumbling stopped, and Will felt his own shoulders tense with growing fear, praying to his non-existent God that Hannibal would stay true to his word, and would not move from wherever the guards intended to keep him. 

He needed him.

The sheet around his body was removed, before he felt himself lifted by several strong hands and lowered, belly down, against the soft cotton of a pillowcase that rubbed against his undamaged cheek. And the scent was earthy firewood in winter, drifting on the near frozen surface of his stream. The scent was them, together, and inside the office, Will moaned into the sofa.

“Stay where you are, Lecter,” a guard warned Hannibal as Will heard the footsteps around him moving backwards, slow and controlled. Will felt himself trembling on both the bed and the sofa of the office, as the clicking of locks sounded through the space of the cell. “Hannibal,” Alana's voice made his ears peak, ringing through the glass wall as she called out to his mate, but there was nothing but silence to answer her unspoken question as Hannibal remained silent in both worlds. Tense against his back on the sofa, and invisible inside their cell.

Then, he heard the shuffle of feet in high heels, the drag of a heavy door, the clutter of army boots and the loud bang of a metal lock falling shut. 

What remained after, was ear-pounding silence.

“Hannibal,” Will sobbed against the sofa and in the office, thighs clenched tightly around his hips. Will wondered if holding his breath in the space of his mind would be enough to kill him. “Please.”

Everything was dark as he waited, listening, feeling all the ends of every nerve searching blindly for the feeling of his Alpha. “Touch me,” he cried inside the office, and finally heard the fast padding of what sounded like bare feet against hardwood, moving past him and stroking him with the scent of winter's pleasures. “Please, yes.”

Then, there was real weight on his hips, solid and warm as Hannibal straddled him in one swift movement, mimicking their position from inside the office. In their shared minds, Will gasped at the contact that unclogged the piping to that fluttering, sheltered feeling of peace he had always worked so hard to deny himself. Hannibal was here.

“Will,” the Alpha gasped against his ear with a voice that was real and warm and breakably small. “God, Will.” Everything inside the Omega burst, broke, busted into light as he shook uncontrollably against both versions of his mate. The real weight of his Alpha on his bones was the key to a locked, dark, airless chamber inside Will, freeing the Omega from the heavy chains that wore him down so cruelly. “Oh God,” Will whimpered in the office as chapped lips slid down to kiss his neck. The real skin of his neck, with the real, damaged lips of his Alpha. “Yes, Christ yes.”

“Will,” Hannibal breathed again, an urgent whisper, a heated plea against his ear and Will tried with all his might to push his hips back against Hannibal and achieve the contact he craved, but only in the office did his body respond. There, Hannibal pushed him down with his hands. “Touch me,” Will growled, begging him shamelessly, openly desperate and wanton, knowing he needed all of his Alpha to bring back strength to his body, mind and beast. 

Knowing it was the only thing he, himself, wanted to happen.

He had dreamed of this moment the second they had separated, and now all he wanted was to stop thinking, hurting, dying, and feel something other than the pain and longing and desperate, sickening need. “Turn me,” he pleaded, wanting to feel the entire length of his mate's skin against his. Inside his mind he struggled against the hold on him, wishing to face Hannibal, see him, taste his lips and feel him everywhere. But in the cell, on the bed, his body was motionless apart from the weak stutter of his breathing.

“I can't move you,” Hannibal swallowed against his ear as he kept his weight off the Omega's back. “You are very badly wounded.” Will groaned into the sofa at the shredded sound of his mate's voice and willed himself to concentrate on the ripped flesh of his back. Here, with Hannibal weighing him down, he didn't feel any pain. There was only a strain, a restless throb beneath the flesh.

“Are we alone?”, he groaned into the pillow, and concentrated on the steady feeling of his mate's thighs against his hips. Clad in only that cotton jumpsuit, Will could now feel the heat radiating off Hannibal's skin, and wanted nothing more than to arch up, coil closer, bury himself as close as possible.

“As alone as we'll ever be,” Hannibal answered him with a hiss, and Will wished he had the strength to spread his legs on the mattress, draw up his knees beneath his hips and just... present. Fuck the camera's, fuck the prison and all its people. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but this. “Fuck me,” he ordered in the office, and felt something stirring against his ass as Hannibal took in a sharp breath behind him. On the sofa he was wearing jeans and Hannibal wore expertly pressed suit pants, but in the cell, Will was only wearing loose boxers and a hospital gown that allowed much easier access.

Hannibal's hands brushed aside the pieces of split fabric to stare at his back, and gentle fingers tracing alongside what Will knew to be stitches. “What does it look like?”, he asked after a moment of silent breathing, and Hannibal took his touch from the skin. “A shark attack,” he answered with honest agony and regret, and Will could imagine the sight that his damaged flesh presented to his mate. Swollen, red and purple, with a vicious snake of black thread and white bandages swirling along his ripped flesh, forcing and pushing skin together. It would look like the bite of a wild beast.

“I don't care,” Will grunted as he tried harder than ever to move up against the hot, solid body against him. “Fuck me.” His demands caused a snarl to erupt from behind him, and this time Hannibal's real, large hands clawed at his sides and up his hips, touching the bare skin with strong, greedy fingers. The Alpha didn't move his hands down to touch him anywhere near his underwear, however, and Will growled beneath his teeth. In his real throat, he felt a push of air. “Did you want to try and wake me with a kiss, perhaps?”, he sneered at his mate, desperate and needful and trapped. Frantic to the point of outraged insanity. “There are no fairytale qualities to these circumstances, remember Hannibal?” He pressed his good cheek hard against the sofa, trying to force his actual body to move with him, and howling in anger when he failed. “I'm dying,” he growled. “I want you,” he cried. “Fuck.me!”

Sharp teeth sank into the back of his neck, and Will gasped a moan when Hannibal's hips pushed into his ass. His growl, both displeased and very aroused, made Will's unconscious body twitch as the Alpha grabbed hold of his hips to pull at the Omega's boxers. “Hannibal, now.” Will almost sobbed when he could feel the Alpha use one hand to work the buttons through the holes of his prison uniform with frantic, violent fingers. Hannibal quickly opened enough space to free himself before he yanked the Omega's underwear down, and let his fingers graze the bare skin of Will's exposed ass. He couldn't see his Alpha, but he smelled the arousal, felt the aggression and knew exactly what was happening behind his back. The knowledge made him moan and whine like a pretty pup in heat against the office sofa, as his starved wolf joined right along with him in the open space of his mind.

Will's unresponsive knees were pushed apart by demanding hands, gentle in touch but fierce in strength, and the lights in the office started to flicker as the floor beneath them began to shake. His skin felt bare against the naked air, and suddenly he felt the heavy, hot curve of Hannibal's length press against the crease of his ass. “Ooh, oh God. Yes,” Will whimpered when two long fingers pressed between his cheeks and circled his hole, dripping with slick, despite the state of his body. “Yes, oh please, yes.” Will almost cried real tears when he felt Hannibal trembling against him before planting a punishing bite below Will's ear.

“Fuck, Hannibal, stop stalling.” The Omega cried into the sofa. “Now, now, now.” He knew he sounded pathetic, whimpering and begging like a greedy boy with no manners, but the heavy weight of Hannibal's hard cock twitched against his ass before Will felt him positioning himself with a whine that he hardly recognized as Hannibal's. They were both so lost, so far gone, so deeply, intimately wounded and scarred by their separation and their battles. They both wanted, needed, to come home.

No preparation, but enough slick to make the slide easy, Hannibal pushed the head of his cock against and through the rim of Will's body, already bringing back color and life to the body beneath him with that single breach. “Will,” the Alpha's voice shook so hard there could have been tears, but Will couldn't move to see his mate, and kiss away the struggle. He felt the drag inside his body, slow and wide and thoroughly invasive, and the burn spread throughout every inch, destroying every wrongly laid out puzzle piece inside.

“Fuck, please, Hannibal.” His knees twitched against the mattress, and Will felt his real stomach clenching with life as Hannibal pushed all the way inside.“This. I need this,” he moaned, feeling his body making room for his Alpha, begging for everything on offer as his insides clenched hard around his mate, both in his mind and on the bed, as if never wanting to let him back out.

Hannibal grunted wildly into his hair, so lost already inside the absolute bliss and absolute salvation of their union. They had both been withering, dying, suffocating inside themselves, and their intimacy was the smoothing of their twisted, tormented nerves. He wasn't a believer, but Will knew he knew hell, just like he now knew all the corners and creases of uncompromising heaven. 

“I've been needing you for so long,” Will confessed, a sob breaking into the pillow as he tried to push back when Hannibal pulled out almost entirely. His hips twitched, a real sign of his body trying to waken, and Hannibal's hands came to grab the soft flesh of the Omega's struggling body. “God yes,” Will heard his mate hiss, completely abandoned at the feeling and the sight of himself disappearing deep within Will's body.

“Hannibal,” Will cried when his real legs started to tremble the moment Hannibal's length pushed harder inside him and grazed against his prostate, making his thighs and trapped cock twitch against the bed. The feeling was enough to make the office walls quiver and spark bright with flashing light that resembled fireworks. “It was torture,” Will whined pitifully against the sofa. “To see you, but not to have you.” And his words were spoken in his mind, but in prison, a hum started to stir from his throat. “Torture...”, Hannibal agreed, brokenly breathless as he pushed deeper and more confident inside Will and watched his mate's muscles twitching back to life.

God, it was a king's meal for a starving kingdom to be able to feel each other like this and to satisfy the never-ending need that lived inside them, always. Again and again, Hannibal pushed his thick, long Alpha cock all the way into his starving body and stroked every nerve inside him, as Will's eyes leaked tears from the pleasure that violently ripped through his body from the inside out. His legs were buckling, his ears were ringing, his ass was clenching so tight around the Alpha, riding the waves of ecstasy as he fought for his hips to move and grind and give him more, everything, control.

“I saw you,” he heard himself whimper, and fuck, his arms were twitching, his fingers were moving. “But you weren't real.” Will clawed at the mattress with his newfound strength as everything in him seemed to thrive and float on the full, beautiful power that his mate drove into him. The office flickered before his eyes, slowly fading in color as Will focused on the feeling of every part that connected with his mate. “I'm real now,” Hannibal choked out a moan, supporting him with two arms when Will's knees managed to push a little higher, thighs trembling with his effort to move. Will knew the Alpha was watching him closely, listening to his vitals and measuring his progress, all while admiring the view provided by his thick cock pushing deep inside the glistering heat of Will's body.

“Yes, God,” Will moaned, hypnotized by the rhythm of Hannibal's strong, pumping hips and the hold of his protective hands. He was driving in so deep Will felt the hair of his mate's belly against the swell of his ass. “You feel real.” His eyes remained unseeing, but he could feel his knees responding to his need to push up, as his lower arms braced and folded to support his upper body. He was wakening, winning, living, fighting. His heart was no longer a flutter, but a real contraction of muscles.

Hannibal's arm came around his waist to hold him up the moment he pushed himself to his knees, and the touch was electric, fire and lightning. “Fuck, you feel real,” and his words were a mumble, but they came out of his own mouth, his real lips, and reached the true ears of his Alpha, hot and solid behind him.

“You're doing amazing,” Hannibal panted against him, groaning when Will's body clenched around him as the new angle provided new friction against the Omega's prostate. “Please,” Will begged, unable to see the bed beneath as the gray sofa pushed in and out of his unsteady vision, but he shuddered against the real skin of his mate as Hannibal pushed inside him, deep and wide and with true purpose. “My Omega,” the Alpha shuddered, moaning so openly fragile Will wished he could reach for Hannibal's face and kiss him breathless. Instead, he pushed back against his mate's pelvis, showing he was there and growing stronger as his true mate bred the life back into him. Indeed, there was no fairytale to be found here.

“Will,” Hannibal warned him, almost pained, when the Omega quickened the pace. His fingers started to dig harder into his mate's flesh, and Will rode back against every thrust with everything his body was worth within this moment. His heart pumped, almost strong, and his eyes fluttered, flashing broken pictures before his eyes. “Yes,” he hissed, arching his back, and feeling his stitches pulling in protest. He paid them no mind, but instead focused on the curve of his erection bouncing against his lower belly. “Touch me,” he growled desperately when Hannibal's fingers reached down and took a firm hold of Will's ignored and leaking cock, so filled and hard it was painful.

“Fuck, please,” Will wailed when the long, warm and certain fingers pumped his sensitive flesh, rubbing at the moist head and countering the rhythm of his hips. His prostate was brutally stroked, his ass was stretched so wide and deep with his Alpha, and his cock was enveloped in a tight, hot grasp that pushed the skin up against the head and hit the sensitive spot beneath the rim in almost painful delight.

“Ahh,” was the only warning given by his mate, before he felt Hannibal's hips driving into his ass with abandon, shaking the metal bed frame and nipping teeth against Will's shoulder before a deep groan filled the room, and hot, wet, thick fluid shot into Will's body with such force and quantity he felt it filling his belly as well as dripping down the back of his thighs. 

And Goddamnit, Will was gone. 

The feeling, the surrender, the power and connection, was all he needed to be set off, as his climax came over him like a falling piano. Everything in him went black, tight, hard, blind. He was floored and beaten down by the strength of his orgasm as if a defibrillator was kick starting his heart back to life. He felt the strong beating in his chest, while liquid pleasure weakened every muscle with a journey from his core to his teeth, to his toes, and back. Fuck, he knew he was letting out the longest, loudest cry, like a wailing animal, but he couldn't stop. All the pain, so, so much pain, was burned from him like the weeds in a flowerbed. 

If he hadn't known better, he would have thought he was dying, sent up to heaven, rewarded by some holy divinity for taming the untamable beast. And when the falling stopped, the pleasure stayed like a silk layer beneath his skin as he collapsed fully spent against the bed. Breathing hard, shaking to the core and feeling his heart pounding, his veins streaming full, life blossoming, and thriving. 

When his voice had died down from simply giving out, he felt the wet drag of his Alpha pulling out of his body, and whimpered at the loss. “Hannibal?”, he reached, blind and exhausted, and heard the bare feet on the wooden floor before the bed dipped, and a warm body slid besides his.

“Will,” he heard his mate's gentle voice, cracked with exhaustion and awe as fingers came to stroke along Will's jaw. “Open your eyes.” And Will blinked before he could find the place, the eyes, his mate was referring to. Inside the office, everything was black, but his lids fluttered when he moved them, and suddenly light and color made it back into his real vision. There, a little blurry around the edges, he saw the heart-squeezing sight of his Alpha, with light in his amber eyes, color to his pale, gray cheeks, and a smile from those cracked, bloodless lips. 

“Hello Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oomf! I hope it was worth the wait, and I also hope I did not upset or offend anyone with the Will not being completely 'physically' conscious during 'the smutty parts'. He was mentally present, of course, it was completely consensual.....if not a little awkward :-P Or a lot....I don't know, they both seemed very pleased with it, is what I'm saying! ^.^  
> Capital L.O.V.E you all!!!


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal breathed deeply against Will's throat before he pulled away and placed one hand under his cheek, giving him a look of innocence he surely did not deserve. “I wish I could have been there to behold your magnificent brutality,” he practically purred with adoration, pulling up his lips in an honest smile that showed off his fangs. Will felt his cheeks glowing red and his stomach fluttering as he swallowed, licking his lips at the words, eyes lowered to Hannibal's chest. “It wasn't...”
> 
> He wasn't sure where he was going to end the sentence, and he would never know, because Hannibal interrupted him with words that froze the air in his lungs.
> 
> “But you didn't kill him, Will.”

“Hannibal,” was all Will managed to push out of his raw throat as he watched the true image of his Alpha take shape before his clouded eyes. He was real. He was here. Hannibal was beside him, against him, brushing fingers through his hair and curling a warm, strong leg below his hips to press their bodies close. Will breathed slow, deep, wheezing along damaged tissue in the newfound silence that came over them like a blanket in the harsh cold of reality. 

_'Calm. Slow. Easy.'_ He didn't know if the words were actually spoken, or if they only rang out from his mind as he tried to find his breath, his heart, the touch of fingertips against his skin. He shook his head to fight the fog around his restless senses as his eyes fluttered madly against the blurry lines in his vision, trying to pull away from his own head by keeping himself steady on his Alpha's glowing eyes. Bright tiger eyes, honey and blood, burning through the curling mist.

And the world came back to him, gradually. Will registered the hard, white walls around him, invasive like a headache. His muscles felt the dented mattress against his front. His skin felt the prickling chill against his exposed, damaged back. He was here, he was out, he was alive. 

He was with Hannibal.

And as the pulsing pleasure beneath his skin slowly faded into a gentle purr, Will began to feel the damage done to his body. He suddenly felt the ripping pain coiling between the shredded flesh between his shoulders, pulling tight inside the vicious, black thread that held his skin together. He felt the cruel throbbing of his sown cheek and the heavy weight of his dried-up muscles, the coughing rhythm of his heart, the sore, chafed insides of his lungs.

“Christ.” So much pain flooded him from many intrusive angles, and Will knew the feeling should be enough to overwhelm him, leaving him writhing and crying on the bed. But there was something there that rose above the agony of his wounds and exhaustion. It was stronger than the pain, and it was all around him. Because lying down on his belly with one good cheek pressed against the familiar mattress, he could finally inhale the true winter scent of his long lost mate.

The burned wood and snow-covered pine trees soothed the aches like a band-aid on a blister and when Will could finally manage a clear vision, his burning eyes gazed at Hannibal's face beside his own, nose to nose. The Alpha lay beside him, stretched on the bed and clinging to him with a tender gentleness, while still radiating powerful force.

“You made it back to me,” Hannibal rumbled against him with a voice that cracked along the words, laced with torment and tense with both the climbing terror and the climax of overwhelming relief. Goosebumps rose on Will's skin at the sound of Hannibal's voice, his words, and the Alpha was quick to pull a blanket around them both, careful not to touch Will's stitches. The warmth of their bodies collected and combined within the cocoon, where Hannibal's hands never stopped reaching out for the trembling Omega. Franticly desperate for nearness and reassurance that they were both here, both alive.

“Someone will be here soon to examine you,” Hannibal whispered, as he rested himself sideways on the mattress next to Will, allowing as little space as possible in between. His breathing was deep, his cheeks and eyes were tinged with new life behind the pasty colors, and his falling and rising chest was visible behind the opened jump suit, dipping low enough to see past Hannibal's bellybutton where the Alpha had ceased to bother correcting his own exposure other than to tuck himself back in. 

Will was helpless against the sight, the heat, the soft voice against his ear, and reached to scrape his feeble fingers against gray chest hair and soft, warm skin. “No,” he moaned, almost sobbed, against the pillow, as he pawed weakly against Hannibal's skin, ocean eyes red with blood and pleading with the amber that started to flicker like a fireplace on a cold winter morning. “No one else.” Will heard his own voice break at the thought of being wheeled away into some doctor's office, after finally having made it back. “Just you.” He pleaded, and Hannibal's fingers were quick to envelop his, squeezing assuringly before he brought the huddled tips in his fist to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the pink flesh.

“They won't take you from me,” the Alpha growled, words made from solid steel as his hand flexed against Will's, who felt his violent passion contracting against his bones. “You're too weak to leave my side now.” And with that, Will heard himself whining like an animal in despair as he pressed his nose beneath Hannibal's chin and let himself be held by careful, protective Alpha arms.

He felt so weak. So safe. A small, wounded cub protected by a powerful lion. Never before had he felt this safe, and it made the world outside their bubble disappear into a void where nothing took shape, color, or name. Hannibal pressed his lips to Will's ear and whispered: “They won't take you. I won't let them.” 

And Will believed him, as he breathed against his Alpha's warm skin and felt the hairs on Hannibal's warm chest brush against his lips. A steady hand cupped the back of his head, caressing the dirty curls and keeping his mate close without putting pressure behind the touch, as Will shuddered endlessly inside their fragile embrace, a true reminder of how close they had been to their deaths.

Inside, his Omega was asleep in the foyer of his mind, curled up and exhausted, ruffled and filthy but pulsing with life beneath the matted fur. Like ever before, a perfect reflection of himself. Will looked at him, and for once, he was happy to see him there.

“Welcome home,” Hannibal spoke unexpectedly into his hair, and Will's lashes fluttered at the kind words inside the sharp tone. They made him gasp soundlessly against Hannibal's throat as he closed his eyes and shuddered against the mattress, swallowing against the saliva threatening to spill from the corner of his mouth. “Fuck,” he was exhausted, immobile and disgustingly weak, but he was here, alive, and so close to Hannibal he would only have to stick out his tongue to taste his skin.

“How was your trip?”, the Alpha rumbled conversationally against his forehead, lips twitching against the skin, and Will tightened his fingers between the short strands of chest hair. “I killed him,” he gritted against the heat of Hannibal's artery, baring his teeth at the memory as his eyes flickered open to behold the soft flesh of his mate's long, pale neck. He remembered, vividly, how it felt to dig his teeth into such tender skin and shred away everything that sustained life. He remembered the hot flow of burning blood inside his mouth, and the tough windpipe that cracked between his teeth. “I did.”

He watched the pulsing, purple veins beneath Hannibal's parchment skin, and leaned in to place a quick kiss against the vital sign he suddenly found such strong appreciation for. “I killed The Dragon, Hannibal,” he whispered against his mate's throat, before he felt the Alpha's fingers curl around his chin to cup it, leading his head back and allowing Hannibal's eyes of liquid, gold affection to stroke over him in a way that made Will's bottom lip tremble. “He wanted to kill you,” Will quivered, blinking rapidly to avoid the rims of his eyes to fill as he fought the urge to nuzzle helplessly against Hannibal's hand. “He wanted to come here, free you, and...” 

A finger brushed over Will's dry lips. “Shhhh,” Hannibal soothed him, catching the saliva on the inside of Will's bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. “I know what he wanted to do,” the Alpha hummed, caressing hands down Will's face and watching him with shimmering eyes, as if seeing the sun after decades of darkness. It hurt the eyes, it burned the skin, but the warmth and the life it brought made everything strong and beautiful again. “But he never will,” the Alpha whispered, smoothing Will's frown away with his fingers as he pressed a gentle kiss to his lips before trailing down to his cheek, his chin, the edge of his jaw. “I know,” the Omega croaked, distracted by the pleasure of Hannibal's lips on his skin, and letting his eyelids droop as he let himself be worshiped. “I killed him.”

Hannibal breathed deeply against Will's throat before he pulled away and placed one hand under his cheek, giving him a look of innocence he surely did not deserve. “I wish I could have been there to behold your magnificent brutality,” he practically purred with adoration, pulling up his lips in an honest smile that showed off his fangs. Will felt his cheeks glowing red and his stomach fluttering as he swallowed, licking his lips at the words, eyes lowered to Hannibal's chest. “It wasn't...”

He wasn't sure where he was going to end the sentence, and he would never know, because Hannibal interrupted him with words that froze the air in his lungs.

“But you didn't kill him, Will.”

The silence had thorns and it made Will's eyes flash back to catch Hannibal's open gaze, as he felt his body going rigid underneath the sheets. A tight sting pulled at his cheek as he winced at the punch of surprise and horror that assaulted him, landing right between his ribs. “...I-I did,” Will stuttered, biting his protest and facing Hannibal's earthy eyes with a startled shake of his shoulders. In the movement, the stitches on his back pulled at the rim of his shredded flesh, preventing Will to rise from the mattress and start pacing. 

He had bitten down, ripped the flesh, and The Dragon had stopped his screaming, his moving, stopped living, before his own eyes. “I did kill him,” he grunted, shrinking back when Hannibal wiped his curls back from his brow with a lazy caress from his hand, until Will shook his head, stubbornly and determined, to make the strand of hair fall back into his eyes. “I did,” he hissed at Hannibal's fond expression. “I ripped out his throat with my teeth and I watched him bleed out on the snow.” His fangs were bare as he spat the words, and Hannibal's eyes dilated from gold to black, exploding with shameless, evident desire. 

“God.” Will's lips were captured in a hard kiss that made his wounded cheek sting and his heart swell as he let the Alpha have him with a lustful hum and sharp teeth against his lips. He gasped when Hannibal licked into his mouth, most likely tasting the dried blood and raw flesh from his ripped cheek as his mate groaned his pleasure deeply inside him, clinging to the curls on the nap of his neck. Despite the confusion and the fear he'd felt at Hannibal's words, Will fell head first into the kiss that brushed every part of him with a dark and soothing pleasure, spreading sticky bliss along every ache. 

It was some time before Hannibal pulled himself away, resting the tip of his nose against Will's with a tired, heated groan. “If you weren't in such a state and I'd been thirty years younger, I would have you again right now,” he growled possessively with eyes black as night and hands wandering beneath the sheets along the swell of Will's ass. Will felt his body stirring with interest, despite being completely spent already, as he panted against Hannibal with bewildered, hazy eyes. “I...”, he swallowed, feeling the comforting weight of Hannibal's hand on the hollow of his back. “I didn't kill him?”

Will watched Hannibal's eyes lighten to a warmly stirring chamomile tea, and his throat tightened, scraping around every breath as his face grew numb against the mattress. He shuddered as the Alpha's free hand reached stubbornly back for the curls on Will's forehead, refusing to let them rest in the messy tangle that almost reached his lashes. “An Omega is much harder to kill then any mere human,” Hannibal explained patiently, while he brushed a finger over the tip of one exposed fang that peaked from between Will's snarling lips. “You are powered by two forces at once.” Will swallowed when fingers slid down his throat, and released a small whimper when the warm hand slipped beneath the thin hospital gown, pressing against the steady beating of his tired but thriving heart.

Will shook his head, a weak gesture against the pillow beneath his head. “No,” he said, desperate to retrieve his memories from that night as heat bloomed under Hannibal's wholesome touch. He had ripped The Dragon to pieces. He had seen the man shrink to a meaningless shell. “No, Hannibal.” His eyes were wide and restless as he tried to cling to his mate with weak, gripping fingers. “I watched the light leave his eyes.” He pushed through his teeth, and watched Hannibal's pupils push wider inside the liquid honey. “I watched him die.”

The Alpha breathed in sharply before his nose traveled up the length of Will's, sighing deeply against his mate's soft skin. “An unborn or infant child needs the protection of the Omega parent, however cruel the circumstances,” he spoke gently against Will's damp temple. “Your body can survive on the brink of death for years.” 

Will's breath hitched deep in his chest, before he closed his eyes and huffed a pained smile, reaching out to smooth fingers over Hannibal's forearm. “Just not without my mate,” he rumbled dryly, only clenching tighter around Hannibal's flesh at the thought. 

It was all cruelly unfair. Being an Omega was supposed to make you stronger. Having a bonded Per mutua nexis mate, made you superior. But having a Per mutua nexus mate without the bond, only made you as vulnerable and weak as a new born pup, Will knew. He had almost died, away from Hannibal, but The Dragon...

Will blinked helplessly at the violent image of the bleeding, dying Omega stuttering behind his eyes.

He hadn't died. The Dragon hadn't died.

“Hannibal,” he gasped from behind his teeth as his eyes widened fearfully and his heart jumped faster against Hannibal's touch. “If he's out there now...” Will's wild gaze dropped as he pictured all the things that could have happened in the two days when he had been locked inside himself. If The Dragon was alive... “Molly,” he choked, blood draining from his cheeks and leaving the harsh, black stitches stark against his colorless skin. The Dragon could have taken her, he could be coming for Hannibal next, he could be...

“Your family is safe,” Hannibal broke the chaos in his mind with a simple statement. The warmth wasn't gone from his voice, but there was a strain behind the gentle flow that Will saw reflected back in the amber eyes that captured him openly. “You can thrust me on that.”

And Will almost laughed as air stuttered in his lungs. Hannibal was here, with him, and he could cry with the relief he felt in his presence. He was everything he needed, everything he burned for. After almost dying without him, there was no denying it.

And then there was this. 

“Can I?”, Will asked the Alpha with his heart in his throat, as he bit back the acid pain that rose from within. His family was safe. Hannibal had called to warn him, and Molly lived. But something inside him scratched at the old trauma of betrayal, wondering where the games had started, and where they had stopped. Because the Alpha had known about the Dragon's plans, and he had failed to tell him.

Could he ever truly trust Hannibal? And if the answer was no... could he live with that knowledge?

Hannibal looked at him, his nose to Will's, and in every line of his pale, fragile skin, Will saw the brutality of heartbreak. “I am sorry, Will,” the Alpha spoke, regret among the envy as his voice dropped to a rumble. “I miscalculated the situation.” And with that, Hannibal rolled himself to his back and let his eyes rest on the ceiling above him. “More precisely, my own.”

Will felt the uncertainty, raw grief and anger pulsing from his motionless mate, and his fingers twitched against the bed. He felt the screaming urge to reach out and touch his mate, but neither one of them moved. “I must admit, it was a rather new experience to find myself unsure,” the Alpha confessed into the silence, keeping his voice void of weight and color as Will watched the muscles tense beneath the skin and the pale, gray prison suit.

Will huffed through his nose and Hannibal's eyes met his as the Alpha turned his head at the noise. “I was not transparent about my knowledge of The Dragon's intentions towards your family,” he offered with a whisper, and Will's heart squeezed so tight he feared it would burst as he watched his mate's eyes shimmer, his lips tighten, swallowing hard before he spoke. “And I feel regret.”

Will's tongue stuttered into chuckle, feeling weak inside his belly at the words and the looks and the heat that spread treacherously through his body. “If that is an apology for wanting my family to be murdered, it is obscene,” he replied, voice thick and lips pressed into an astonished smile as Hannibal remained stoic beside him. 

Will scratched lost fingers against his mate's shoulder. “You wanted it to happen,” he croaked, pushing nails into Hannibal's upper arm and pressing until little half-moons of blood stained the pale fabric from underneath. Hannibal let him, without a noise or a twitch. Maybe he knew Will wanted to hurt him, punish him, as much as Will wanted to be punished by Hannibal in return. Both of them had done wrong. Both of them had wavered on this new path, misled by old habits and familiar desires. 

Drawn to what was safe to feel.

“You wanted it from the moment I presented.” Will breathed as he pressed his face against the strong shoulder beside him, and retracting his bloody nails from the skin. There was no accusation, nor anger in his voice. There was no surprise. 

His hand stroked along the stained cotton against the Alpha's damaged skin. This was Hannibal, and Will was not confused. He knew him, as he knew and had witnessed his desire to destroy whomever breathed Will's air. Hannibal's instinct was to crush, to reshape, to inflict pain where it was pleasurable. It was the reason Will had been forced to turn his back on him, all those years ago.

The expressed regret, however... even naming it, seemed to surprise and disturb them both. 

“The idea arose the moment he first contacted me,” Hannibal said, his face tired and his eyes flashing down. Will watched the display, and would have considered it well-crafted contrite, before today. Now, he didn't know anymore. “Before I even came to you?”, Will asked him, baffled by the idea as he blinked lashes of his right eye against the mattress. “Yes,” Hannibal admitted, not missing a beat, as he moved his gaze to Will's throat rather than to face him. 

And he watched his Alpha's bones shudder beneath transparent skin. Both were weak and marred by their separation. Dependable, afraid, and powerless. It was everything Hannibal had never been, and everything he despised becoming, Will knew. Because he could defeat the strong, clever Alpha, by simply walking away. 

Will felt, despite everything else, a pinch of sick satisfaction to know this, along with the knowledge that even after years had passed, Hannibal had never stopped thinking of a way to get him back into his life. Will had always felt shame when he had never stopped dreaming of that husk, curling voice, or that sharp skull of a face. Every time the phone rang he had been anxious. Every strange letter on the doormat had made his stomach flutter. He had never, in three years time, stopped finding the Alpha in the first room of his mind.

“You wanted to destroy what kept me sane, hoping I would present and come running,” Will said, because that was the monster he knew Hannibal to be. He did those things to people. He played them like a puppeteer, without them even realizing they were being controlled by a higher hand. But Will saw the hand, and he felt the strings. Whatever schemes and games had always dominated Hannibal's intentions, Will could find fewer and fewer of them behind the spark in those tiger eyes.

“I was hoping you would find your way to me,” Hannibal said, reaching a hand down to touch Will's fingers almost shyly, as Will curled his own around the Alpha's without hesitation. He sighed into the mattress. “Did you think that would make any of this easier?”, Will asked him, his curiosity real as he allowed Hannibal to intertwine their hands. “Wouldn't it?”, the Alpha countered, a rueful smile on his pale, pink lips. Will wanted to taste them again, feel them, capture and bite them until they were swollen red with life and blood and passion. Instead, he wet his own with his tongue and asked: “Why did you call, Hannibal? You could have had what you wanted.”

The Alpha brought his eyes back to the ceiling, as his hand released all tension against Will's skin. He looked serene like this, but behind his eyes, Will could see the war. “You know I want you to choose me despite having them waiting for you,” his mate spoke, a shiver in every breath. “Not because there is no one else to choose.” And Will watched his mate's tight features contract beneath the skin, making him reach out to touch the thin muscle that worked inside his jaw. He knew this.

“It's that,” he said, and Hannibal seemed powerless against following Will's finger with his lips like a hungry bird. “And it's more.” He allowed Hannibal to kiss the skin before he flashed bright and liquid honey back to Will, concealing confusion, perhaps shame, behind his predator eyes. Will knew he had never known him like he knew him today. He had never seen him like he could see him now. Separating and uniting in their minds as well as in reality, had seemed to strengthen their understanding of each other, and their need to explore it. It had brought a sense of exposure neither had experienced before, and it was frightening, as well as it was beautiful.

Then, Hannibal looked back into his eyes, and Will wondered if he showed more than he was willing, too. “When we bond...”, Hannibal said through his stiff jaw, leaving no room for protest. “When you'll look into my mind and see everything, I want you to do so without regrets or surprises.” The words were thin and detached in the air between them, but Will believed them to be part of the truth, and bit his lip to hide the tremor he felt clawing up his throat. He watched his struggling mate, and saw him doing the same. 

And yet, there was one truth Will had felt so clearly inside the office. The most important reason, the one that mattered, the one that changed things, was left unsaid. 

“Why did you call, Hannibal?”, Will pressed, and watched Hannibal's face contort into a grimace beside him. “You told me in our minds,” he almost whimpered, feeling heat rise to his cheeks and clinging to the Alpha forearm. “I need you to tell me again.” And Hannibal gritted his teeth, sighed a growl and turned back towards his Omega with a violent jerk of his shoulder. He was angry, but Will could feel the emotion was not directed at him. Their eyes met like liquid glass, intertwining in heat and texture as Will took a stuttering breath and watched his pained mate bite back emotions beside him. “Tell me again.”

The command turned into a plea, and Hannibal closed his eyes briefly before he answered past his parted lips. “I don't want to see you suffer,” he breathed brokenly against Will's cheek, and the Omega couldn't help but feel overcome by hearing those words spoken aloud. He trembled as Hannibal reached to cup his chin, gritting his own teeth and squeezing Will around the bone. “I can't stand to see you suffer,” The Alpha hissed again with eyes wide and bewildered, as if shocked by the truth of his own confession.

And Will watched his Alpha struggle as he lowered his lids and bared his fangs with a stuttering smile. As odd as it would seem to an outsider, this was victory. “That was never a concern before,” he noted with the fragile sound of his own voice, and watched as the Alpha lips trembled against a smile. “No. It was not.”

Will's vision was taken when Hannibal pressed forward, pushing hard into a kiss Will was helpless to answer with his own, open lips. “You are changing, Will,” Hannibal breathed against his mate's skin. “Beyond your control.” Will moaned against the Alpha as his belly swirled with a dark spark of belonging. This man had planned to have his family murdered by a rivaling Omega, yet here he was clinging to him like he was the air he breathed. He had hated himself for feeling that way, before. But not today.

“The Omega changes you. He fills all the missing pieces alongside your human form,” Hannibal groaned breathlessly before sucking Will's lip between his own, and the Omega clawed desperately at the bare chest against him, seeking more, already. “You're allowing your beast to live beside your man,” the Alpha sighed against Will's teeth. “And it restores the rightful balance between them.”

Will whimpered when Hannibal pulled away, lips and cheeks pink, and eyes unsteady behind half-closed lids. “But I am changing just the same,” the Alpha confessed, a tremor inside his words before he swallowed around a pulling smile. “The animal in you brings forth the humanity in me.”

Hannibal's breathing remained shallow, and as Will reached to trace a finger along his mate's temple, he could feel the dampness of cold perspiration. Where he became more beast, Hannibal became man. What irony life possessed. The Alpha leaned into his touch with closed eyes, as if surrendering to something powerful inside himself. “I too, am becoming more _balanced_ in the process of our strengthening union.” 

Will tried to push his upper body to the side, pulling himself up with the hand underneath him, as Hannibal reached to steady his weight. It hurt his back, but his vision had been partly obscured by the mattress, and he wanted to be able to see everything on offer before him. All of Hannibal, more beautiful than he'd ever been. “It is not just my becoming then,” he said, panting through the pain of wild, hot flashes that screamed infected flesh, as he smiled at his half-undressed Alpha. Butterfly wings seemed to tickle his insides as he peeked through the curtains of Hannibal's revealing eyes. “Is it?”

This time, it was his mate who chuckled through his pain, and trailed a finger down Will's newly exposed collarbone. “This is the acceptance of our true nature, Will,” Hannibal said, his words rising with pleasure. “But it is not your becoming.” Will breathed when Hannibal's hand traced lower on his chest, making the muscles of his abdomen clench eagerly in invitation, before they pulled on the skin of his shredded back. 

“Your becoming is something you choose, consciously, for yourself,” Hannibal said, before taking his fingers back and smoothing out the tension with a hand on Will's rising chest. “It doesn't just find you,” he sighed, a faint smile on his lips when his nails scraped along Will's heartbeat. “You seek it because you crave it.” Their eyes met again, and Will bit his lip when Hannibal's hand curled around his side, as if to take him into an embrace. “Not only the justice, but the violence. And its beauty.”

Will swallowed, balancing his own weight on his arms as he tried to lean closer into his Alpha, and winced openly at the effort. The words were pulling on his heartstrings, but he did not know how to answer, or understand where this knowledge left him. If he didn't _become_ because he chose not to want that for himself, where would that leave things between them? 

And where would he want them to be?

“Where is he now?”, he asked instead, through teeth that bit down against the twitching flesh and sore muscles. Hannibal didn't reply, but shook his head at Will's display of pain. “This hurts you,” he said as he pulled back from his mate with knitted brows and a curled lip. Will narrowed his eyes with an; “Everything hurts me,” and Hannibal's face flashed tight with open agony, revealing an ominous swirl of darkness in the golden pools. 

“Sit me up,” Will said, suddenly tired and irritated at how the mattress dug into his skin, and Hannibal's hands were quick to curl under his armpits and lift him with a twist that allowed Will's legs off the side of the mattress. “Fuck.” His back screamed with every muscle that moved, and the right side of his face felt sickly warm, heavy and swollen. He was certain he looked hideous, and bit back tears when the Alpha ran eyes over his revealed features. He had never been vain, but sitting here with his mate, oddly beautiful, even now, suddenly made him feel small.

Hannibal stood before him, concern, pain and tenderness still openly visible on his face, and when Will searched for disgust or disappointment in those gracious features, he failed to find any. 

“Just... tell me,” he sighed, hearing the slur of his speech where the corner of his swollen mouth pressed on the inside of his cheek. 

“Where is The Dragon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My lovely lovelies! I am so sorry, I'm still behind on answering your comments because I am writing every free moment I have :-P I want to have my updates ready every week! I promise promise, I will answer all of them asap, so please don't stop writing to me! I do need a little push between the shoulderblades sometimes ^.^ <3
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter ^.^ It was lots of talking, but there is lots to talk about!  
> All my love!! <3 <3 <3


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He watched Hannibal's hands clasp together in front of him. “Do you no longer believe in the definition of right and wrong, Will?”, he heard his Alpha inquire, more than ever so eager to lead him out of his cage of morals and values and the rules society had etched into his brain. “Is there good in all evil?”, Hannibal asked him. “And is there evil in what the world considers to be good?”
> 
> Will swallowed against his injured cheek, tasting the old, brown blood on his tongue as he let himself be caught by Hannibal's invasive eyes. Games. Pointless, childish games. Hannibal wanted him to say that the world was indeed that neutral playing board, where rules didn't apply, and you could move your pawn in every direction. No dice, no cards, no guidelines. Choice only. He wanted him to take that pawn, turn it away from everything the rulebook required of him, and choose a different direction. Choose Hannibal.

Hannibal didn't take a seat beside him, but started pacing short distances in front of the bed. Will looked up at him through his fringe with both hands gripping at the bed frame. There was a silence where only the flat sound of Hannibal's bare feet against the hardwood floor could be heard. 

And Will watched him. From his damp temples to his bare toes. From his frown to his clenched fingers. From his strong back beneath the cotton suit, to the tightened lips over sharp teeth. 

In that moment, Will felt like he could watch him forever.

There seemed a lot considered by his Alpha, before he spoke. “I expected him to go to your family the evening before your arrival,” he finally stated, point-blank, and Will's jaw locked as the words faded out slowly inside his own head. He didn't move or breathe, but inside his skull he was quick to calculate the outcome of that scenario. 

He wouldn't have been there.

He would not have been there to stop him.

Molly and Wally would have been alone in the house, sleeping. “He wanted your attention,” Hannibal spoke with care, but he might as well have been screaming right into Will's ear, who gritted his teeth and lowered his head with a shake. “And coming home to a house filled with corpses would have provided him with a responsive audience.” 

Will's eyes shot back up at the horrifying image, but the Alpha avoided his stare as he flashed his own gaze along the ceiling, hands clasped behind his back. Pulling his shoulders back to avoid pressure on his wound, Will allowed his nostrils to flare while he tried fervently to erase the picture painted inside his mind. 

“He wanted my anger,” he retorted almost passively, bending his head back down to rest in his hands. “A reason to kill me.” Will could hear the little hiss of air sucked against lips and teeth, and watched Hannibal's pacing feet halt on the floor before him. “He wanted your outrage,” the Alpha spoke, sounding strangely lost in thought.

Will tilted his head just in time to see his mate reach out, intending to touch his hair, before catching Will's eyes and quickly pulling back his fingers. “He wanted your grief,” the Alpha continued, as if nothing had passed between them, and returned to his restless pacing. “He wanted your fury and your pride.” Will swallowed, watching his mate's touch pull away without having received it, and felt his lips trying to push into a trembling pout. 

He felt fragile, weak for the Alpha. 

Their gaze met for seconds only, before Hannibal shook his head and turned his eyes down, where he reached to re-button his suit. “He didn't want your death.” 

Will watched with lost eyes to see the exposed skin of his mate disappear behind cotton fabric. “My defeat,” he corrected, somewhat disconnected, eyes on the spot where Hannibal's bellybutton had just been covered. “Your submission,” the Alpha said, and Will looked up where the fingers traveled fast along Hannibal's chest before he huffed a breath and looked down at his own, bruised knees. “He wanted to be dominant,” Will spoke matter-of-factly. 

“A dominant Omega wanting to channel his inner Alpha.”

Hannibal smiled vaguely at his mate's analysis, as he tilted his head. “A victim of his childhood, born in the wrong body,” he proposed lightly. “Shamed for being the weaker sex.” And Will could hear that familiar tone in his voice. “A monster created by a harsh, ill-fitting society.” It was the tone Hannibal used when he spoke with feigned wonder about things he already knew. Testing the water with a toe. “Victimized by a discriminatory world.”

Despite himself and the situation, Will smiled with his tongue behind his teeth. He was unexpectedly grasped by memories of their time as doctor and patient in Hannibal's office. A bittersweet bath of melancholy. “Chickens and eggs,” he said, taking the bait with a rising spark in his chest. “Victims and monsters.” Their eyes brushed, and Will could feel the heat that shimmered in between. “We all have the potential and the backstory to become either one of those, Doctor Lecter,” he challenged, and watched Hannibal's eyes shimmer with light. “We're all born to be damaged.”

He watched Hannibal's hands clasp together in front of him. “Do you no longer believe in the definition of right and wrong, Will?”, he heard his Alpha inquire, more than ever so eager to lead him out of his cage of morals and values and the rules society had etched into his brain. “Is there good in all evil?”, Hannibal asked him. “And is there evil in what the world considers to be good?”

Will swallowed against his injured cheek, tasting the old, brown blood on his tongue as he let himself be caught by Hannibal's invasive eyes. Games. Pointless, childish games. Hannibal wanted him to say that the world was indeed that neutral playing board, where rules didn't apply, and where you could move your pawn in every direction. No dice, no cards, no direction. Choice only. He wanted him to take that pawn, turn it away from everything the rulebook required of him, and choose a different direction. Choose Hannibal.

And he wanted, so badly at this point, to give in and say that, yes, none of it mattered. That there were no lines or borders in this world, and that they should only look for color and beauty in every corner of the gray mass that was humanity. 

Instead, he coughed against the scratching words in his throat, and lowered his eyes as if he hadn't heard.

“My pain would have been a prize,” he said instead, continuing where the topic had strayed, and he dug his fingers into the mattress, keeping his back straight and lifting his head back up when he felt the strain of stitches protesting. Hannibal's bare feet were pointing at him on the hardwood floor. “He underestimated you,” the Alpha played along, a flash of longing in his voice that had Will taking a sharp inhale as he met Hannibal's eyes, both lost and senseless in their sockets. “He waited.”

Will rolled his shoulders back, testing his range of movement as Hannibal folded his hands behind his back, lifted himself up on his toes to stretch, and rolled back on his heels. Then, he walked to the bed, and seated himself besides the Omega with a squeak of the mattress. Their hips were close, but didn't touch. “I don't know why he chose confrontation,” Hannibal spoke, sounding rather rigid, disappointed with his own mistake. Will curled up his lip and placed his weight on his arms behind him. He knew why.

The Dragon had allowed Will to find him, because he'd become a threat. Will remembered their conversation at the motel with perfect clarity, and licked his dry lips with a raw chuckle. “Maybe it was my reluctance to reject the possibility of bonding with you.”

Hannibal stilled beside him. Will felt it, and heard it, and saw it happening from the corner of his eyes as he kept his gaze firmly ahead of himself. There was silence, an awkward shuffle of bones on the mattress, and a deep breath from his mate before he rumbled a fairly disinterested: “Did you?” 

It made Will smile with honest exhaustion, his eyes closed and his teeth bare. “What was the plan?”, he asked, because the direction their conversation was about to take was one he wasn't ready for. But fingers nudged his, and before he could look down, Hannibal had linked their hands on the bed between them, shooting comfort up Will's arm and down his back with a warm, reassuring touch. 

Relief came out with a deep sigh, as Hannibal's hand grasped him tightly. “He would have come to me, after,” he said, his voice low but light. “And I'm fairly certain he would have tried to break into my cell and force a bond on me.”

Will heard a snarl pushing from his own throat, remembering how The Dragon had explained his intentions towards Hannibal, and squeezed harder around his mate's fingers between his. “You would have killed him,” he said, as if it was the only possible outcome. “Yes,” and Hannibal answered him without a shred of doubt about it. Confidence that Will knew was justified. 

The Omega pulled their linked hands to his lap with a sigh that was drawn up from the tip of his toes. “Winning my trust, as I am afraid and all alone in the world,” he said, his lips pushing into a tight, humorless smile. “I come running back, desperate for a place to belong.” Will flashed his eyes to see Hannibal staring back at him. “And here are two shoulders for me to cry on.”

Hannibal copied his grave smile and Will felt it stabbing inside his gut as the grief flowed openly between them. “I wanted that,” the Alpha said, his voice forked like lightning. “It wasn't ideal, but I would have had you with me.” And the words were open, hollow, transparent. “There would be no other place to go.” It was the truth, and it hurt them both. Neither one of them would have been satisfied, and yet they both could have easily allowed it to happen. Hannibal would have gotten Will without him having any other attachments in the world, and Will would have had Hannibal, without the guilt or the responsibility to have chosen a murderer over his wife.

And now the question was this: “Would you have called to warn me if he hadn't changed his mind, and had attempted to kill my family before my arrival?” Hannibal's eyes moved down to his bare feet, and the hand in Will's clenched painfully tight. “I would tell you,” Hannibal said, his toes curling against the wooden floor. “But the answer to that changes every day.” Will pushed his head back to ease the strain of his neck, as Hannibal lifted his at the confession. “Every hour, even.”

Will saw the earthly tones of his mate's eyes move from dark to light, undecided and unfamiliar, which was an emotion Will understood immediately. “Does that frighten you?”, he asked, as Hannibal's lips tightened. “Yes,” he admitted, not shameless, not yet, but openly amazed at Will's ability to see what even the Alpha himself might have missed. 

“So The Dragon is alive,” Will said, his chest drawing tight at the idea, as he felt Hannibal's fingers slip from his. The removed touch was surprising and unwelcome, until Hannibal moved off of the bed and came to sit on his haunches before him. Amber eyes were large and the pale skin looked powdery soft. “He's transformed,” the Alpha said as he took both of Will's hands back in his. The eyes melted back to stirred honey, affection and sweet agony, as Will's fingers tingled in the Alpha's possessive grip.

“Transformed?”, he asked, bewildered by the words but enthralled by the intimate touch and nearness of his mate, soothing his injuries and his restless mind. “What did you do?” The question made Hannibal smile, almost politely, as he tilted his head and rose Will's hand to his own chest. “We talked,” the Alpha said ever so gently, with an innocence that Will knew didn't belong. “I convinced him to become what he was destined to be.” And eyes shimmered like a rainbow in an oil stain. 

“A dragon?”, Will asked confusedly, as his fingers scratched against his mate's chest. His breath stuttered with surprise as he watched Hannibal bring the knuckles of both hands to his lips, and pressed a kiss to the skin as a symbol of devotion. “The Great Red Dragon,” the Alpha mouthed against his bones.

Will felt himself tumbling deep into the golden gates of hell.

And then there was noise.

He barely had the time to widen his eyes in stunned surprise, when the heated moment was coldly disrupted by the loud clanging of removed locks. He froze in place, tensing his shoulders and leaning further back as he expected Hannibal to move away from him at the obvious arrival of a visitor. But his Alpha stayed on his haunches before him, nuzzling into his hands and making a warm glow fan out from the contact through the tendons of Will's hands. 

He swallowed at the sight of the deep amber eyes, both possessive and spiked with what he knew was unapologetic love, as he clenched his hands inside Hannibal's to stop his own fingers from trembling. Hannibal's eyes were only on him, lips against his skin, and pointedly ignoring whomever else was wanting of their attention while several people dripped inside the cell behind the glass. Just us, he seemed to say, and Will drowned in that promise, to look up and away only when a sharp voice rang out through the room. “Against the wall, Lecter.” 

The command was harsh and clear and Will's fingers only gripped harder around his mate as he suddenly saw a flock of uniforms lining up behind the glass. Four armed guards, the tallest and widest clearly their leader, followed by the familiar face of Doctor Hammings.

Will heard himself taking a shaky, panicked breath as he looked at all the eyes pointing towards them with curiosity, fear and greed, concealed behind well-crafted professionalism. “Now, Lecter.” And only then did Hannibal pull his hands away and rise to his feet, his eyes still on the shivering Omega. “It changes nothing, Will,” he spoke gentle tones beneath his breath. 

As he walked towards the wall, an expression of polite patience smoothing out his features, four loaded guns pointed at him as he calmly complied with having his hands cuffed through the holes in the glass. Will understood what Hannibal was telling him, as he watched the guards catch and capture the beast. He was cuffed, held at gunpoint, but it was all theatrics. By no means did it leave the Alpha helpless, or powerless, like they believed. They did not know his strength, his resourcefulness and his fearlessness of pain and death.

Will watched Hannibal cooperating with utter calm before the door to the cell was unlocked and three guards came marching into the room, while the remaining one stayed behind the glass wall besides Hannibal's cuffed hands. They kept their guns fully pointed on the Alpha, but Will noticed their eyes repeatedly flashing back and forth between them as they positioned themselves both by the wall, and his bed. 

He realized that at this point, he too was considered a threat.

“Hello sir,” the Omega heard a familiar, nervous voice coming from his right and blinked up to see the youthful, tense face of Dennis. The blond man had his gun aimed at Hannibal, but he was staring excitedly down at Will, who was still hunched and shivering on the bed. “Good to see you back,” the guard whispered in his direction, flashing a toothy smile that stunned Will, and which he answered with a passive nod in his direction. As Will rose his head, the blue eyes of Dennis widened as they flashed over the war-zone on Will's cheek and back. 

“Or... good to see you alive...”, he stuttered before he was interrupted with a: “Yes, thank you Dennis,” upon which the guards parted to let Doctor Hammings step forth. “Please step back and focus on your task,” the old man's watery eyes flashed correctively towards the guard, whose cheeks colored pink as he straightened his back and quickly brought his attention back to Hannibal.

The Alpha stood in silence, still, blinking lazily at the scene before him like a cat in the summer sun, and Will knew he was the only one who could detect the twitch of a calf inside the prison suit, betraying his awareness. 

“Doctor Lecter, Mister Graham,” Doctor Hammings greeted them with a pleasant nod neither of them answered. The Doctor, however, did not seem bothered by the lukewarm reception, and flashed a reassuring smile of yellow teeth towards Will, an excited spasm in the fingers of his hand.

Will looked up into the pale blue eyes, framed by stubbles of broken lashes, and watched the man step closer towards him, security trailing closely behind. “I'm here to examine and re-bandage you,” the Doctor spoke gently, and Will could hear a low, barely detectable rumble coming from Hannibal's chest. “It will make the pain more endurable.” The pale eyes almost zigzagged the pattern of Will's stitches on his cheek, and the Omega clenched his teeth as the man came to stand beside the bed.

“I'm fine,” he said, as calm as he could manage, as he watched the old hands with yellow nails reach into the pocket of the white coat, bringing out blue, rubber gloves. “Yes, you are always fine,” Doctor Hammings retorted rather dryly before snapping the surgical gloves over his fingers. “But if you had not been an Omega, Mr Graham, I can assure you... you would be dead.” 

Will's ears popped at the sudden words, and Hannibal's rumbling peaked briefly as a flash of teeth shimmered into the room.

“Please lie down on your front,” Hammings said as he gestured to the mattress, and Will wondered how much power this man really had over him in this moment. He wasn't a prisoner, but could he refuse care? Did he still have the option to get up and walk out? “Take your time,” the old man said, not at all unkind, and Will's eyes shot back to Hannibal. There was a hint of spite in how those light eyebrows curved inwards, and Will knew the Alpha wished nothing more than to be able to give him the medical care he needed himself. 

But he did need it.

“I would be dead?”, he groaned, as he moved himself around to lie down on his stomach, wincing as the thread chafed cruelly against his open flesh. The Doctor hummed, already leaning over to observe the shredded skin. “You lost a considerable amount of blood, Mister Graham,” Hammings said, and Will could hear his mate breathing determinedly through his nose, suppressing whatever it was he was battling. “Normally, you would have received donor blood to keep your heart pumping,” the Doctor continued as Will stretched himself out on the mattress, allowing Hammings access to his wounded back. “But that's not an option in your case, I'm afraid.” 

A rubber finger touched his flesh, and Will bit his teeth down to stop himself from moving away. Contact with anyone other than his Alpha remained odd and wrong, and he winced, hiding his face in the crook of his arm. Donated blood was not an option for him, Hammings had said. No human blood for an Omega, was Will's best guess. 

Hannibal was still rumbling, a rising warning to his environment and everyone in it. Involuntarily so, Will knew, but to human ears he doubted it to be detectable anyway. “Ah, I see the bleeding has finally stopped,” Hammings hummed above him, as Will pressed his good cheek against the skin of his folded arms. “Very good.”

More touches to his open flesh. Fingers brushed the edges, the thread, a bandage was lifted. “A little infection around the rims,” the Doctor mumbled, and Will heard his Alpha inhaling a quick burst of air. Something hard touched the inside of Will's ear, and a loud click indicated that his temperature was being taken. This time, it was Will who had to bite back a pushing growl from his throat. “Your fever has gone down. Wonderful,” the Doctor said, before Will could feel fingers removing his bandages with quick movements that were surprisingly precise.

“The reunion with your Alpha has worked wonders already,” the Doctor spoke with satisfaction and a spark of humorous delight that caused a flush of heat to wriggle in Will's chest. “A remarkable recovery, utterly impossible for humans.” Will only cleared his throat, pressing lips into his own arm as his cuts were dabbed with something that made his skin sting quite cruelly, but did dull the heated throbbing of the flesh beneath.

“And I dare say, it has done the same for you, Doctor,” Will then heard spoken behind him, and he lifted his head off his arms to notice that the man had turned to address Hannibal. The Alpha tensed ever so slightly beneath the calm, cool exterior. “Certainly, Doctor,” Hannibal replied, repeating the title with sharp emphasis as he smiled tightly polite at the older man. Will wondered if no one else could see the threat and the danger that swam beneath the Alpha's words when the old man only directed himself further towards him. “Will you finally allow me to look at your hand?”, Hammings asked him, and as quick and unexpected as the question was, as quick was Hannibal answering with a flash of pointed teeth, accompanied by a hearty snarl. 

This time, no one missed the clear warning, as everyone, including Will, jumped at the sound. It was a quick burst of anger, showing both his power and weakness where Hannibal normally stayed hidden behind his porcelain mask. Instantly, two guns clicked and rose higher, projecting red dots between the eyes of Will's Alpha mate. “Dennis,” hissed the large guard, and click, two dots changed to three, as Will struggled to move his head back far enough to keep his eyes on Hannibal, groaning at the biting stitches. “No. No, NO!” he cried out, fighting to push himself off of the bed before feeling two hands pushing him back down. “Hannibal.” But the Alpha had already returned to his former stance, shoulders low, face unreadable, a lazy cat in the sun. 

“I apologize, Doctor, but I am in no need of your care,” he recovered, unshaken, as if nothing has occurred between them. As if he wasn't threatened by four guns, loaded and aiming at his head. A moment of silence passed before every one of the red dots were switched off, while eyes remained narrowed with suspicion. 

Doctor Hammings, however, looked quite unruffled by the outburst, observing Hannibal with a great and blooming interest. He was lucky to be allowed near such a special specimen, bound and helpless, and Will knew, without even needing to look the Doctor in the eye, that he and Hannibal were the cherries on top his long and boring medical career.

“Our dear Will, however, does need your medical expertise,” Hannibal offered, clean in tone where there could have been mocking. Will could only see the face of the guard still on the other side of the glass wall, but his eyes flashed sharp at Hannibal's well-mannered, yet demanding tone. The Alpha took control where other people dropped it, and the transaction was always seamless enough not to be noticed in time. Hammings, however, let his lips jerk up with a smile, before he turned back towards the Omega's exposed back. “Certainly, Doctor Lecter.”

Will turned his head back, letting his chin rest on his arms as he heard the rustling of bandages being unpacked and unwrapped. But his ear stayed out for one thing only, and that was the steady beating of Hannibal's heart. 

He was here. He was alive. They were both here.

The message they'd received was clear. Lie low, be still, allow everything to happen, or they would be killed. No one would question their deaths at this point. And without the other, they were both worthless. Had Alana figured out what leverage that gave her, Will wondered. Was that why they were all so ready to liquidate?

His back was cleaned, sterilized and re-bandaged. 

“And your cheek,” the Doctor said, touching his shoulders to help him upright as Will heard his mate breathing around his fangs. The pain was more durable now as he was moved, slowly and carefully, to sit on the bed. From this position he could see Hannibal and their eyes met with the intensity of a hammer hitting brick – hard, shattering and precise, as the Doctor came to sit beside him.

“These were all made by fingernails, correct?”, he asked, brushing the line of the cut with rubber fingers as his eyes sparkled openly with hungry fascination. Will shuffled uncomfortably on the mattress before hearing a low growl rising from his chained Alpha. “They were made by the claws of an Omega,” Hannibal corrected Hammings. “One in control of his beast.” His voice was leveled but his words were darkened by stormy clouds that drifted through the gold, and which made the old Doctor's face light up with poorly concealed pleasure. 

Fingernails. Hannibal was right to have corrected him. Will had seen it himself, on the Dragon and on his own hands. When the Omega became part of the battle, his nails had turned to knives.

“These will all leave scars, I'm afraid,” Doctor Hammings said, not sounding particularly afraid at all, as his fingers moved across the stitches. Will clenched his jaw, and then regretted doing so when he realized the Doctor could feel the nervous twitch. 

He had no idea what he looked like yet, and for all he knew, half his face was ripped to bloody shreds. “How bad is it?”, he asked, before he could stop himself, as he swallowed thickly at the idea of looking monstrous. He had never considered himself _stereotypically_ handsome, but he'd never turned heads for the wrong reasons either.

He felt Hannibal's eyes on him, and wondered if the Alpha silently berated him for his weakness over something so trivial. “It's one cut, deep but clean,” the Doctor said, placing the tips of two rubber fingers near Will's ear, and close to the corner of his mouth. “From here, to there.” Will's jaw trembled against the touch as he flashed his eyes back to Hannibal. Amber liquid swirled warm and lazily, and Will didn't look away from his mate when the Doctor pulled at the bandages on his cheek. “It will gradually fade overtime, I'm sure. But...”

“It suits you,” Hannibal interrupted, startling everyone with his unexpected words and a soft voice filled with rarely displayed, open infatuation. The Alpha's shimmering eyes were unapologetically only for Will, as if no one else was in the room with them, and the Omega felt blood rushing to his already aching cheeks as his eyes widened and his heart squeezed tight. He heard Dennis sigh longingly beside him, and watched Hammings' lips pressed into a hidden smile as he continued to work on his bandages. The other guards, however, looked at the Alpha with suspicious bewilderment and tightening fingers on their guns.

But no matter where he looked, Will was forever drawn back to the Alpha's golden eyes, feeling more and more like a safe haven in the midst of mayhem. “It suits me,” he scoffed Hannibal's words back at him, as the rubber fingers started to disinfect his face with the biting substance. Hannibal tilted his head as he looked at him, not heeding the three guns pointed directly to his forehead. “It reflects your inside on your outside,” he spoke attentively. “It's a truer, rarer kind of beauty.” Will's lips tightened, and he felt his stitches pulling tight at the uncontrolled movement. His forehead was rapidly becoming damp with sweat as Doctor Hammings hummed ever so slightly beneath his breath. Dennis, however, gasped outright into the room. 

There was a bit of uneasy shuffling of boots against the floor, but Hannibal's eyes stayed true on his, and Will had to force himself not to drown in the golden caresses, or let his lips twitch into a flustered smile. “Scarred, inside and out,” he mocked instead, unable to stop feeling the tingling pleasure brought by Hannibal's stare of tender, public possession. “Of course you would call that beauty.” 

The corner of Hannibal's lips curled as he stood against the glass that trapped him. “Not scarred,” he corrected, pulling Will into a bubble of their own. “Savage.” Doctor Hammings' fingers twitched against his cheek as Will forced down a smile to avoid pulling at his stitches. “If that's the case, you're in need of more scars,” he retorted, hearing a snort coming from behind him as he watched the challenging eyes of the lion, disguised as the lazy cat in the sun. Hannibal's lids lowered before one fang pressed into his lower lip. “Then give me some,” he said, heat curling around his voice.

Will felt his breath quickening, his blood rising, his heart skipping and his eyes widening.

_Fuck._

“Mr. Graham,” Hammings' voice ripped through the room with the volume intrusively louder than he had used before. Will jolted on his spot on the bed, suddenly surrounded by the sound of shuffling boots and clearing throats that made his face glow red with heat. _For God's sake._ Will's eyes tore away from his mate, hurting like hairs ripped from his skin, and moved his startled gaze to the still pleasantly smiling Doctor Hammings.

He tried to control his breathing as the Doctor placed his items back in the pockets of his coat and snapped off the rubber gloves. He then proceeded by hacking brutally through the haze with a singular sentence. “Your wife is on her way over,” he spoke, while twisting the cap on a small, brown bottle and sliding it into an inside pocket. 

_Oh._

Will felt his lungs squeeze tight as his lips parted with numbing shock. “Molly?”, the name left his lips before he could stop himself, and his eyes instantly flashed back to Hannibal.

The Alpha looked at him, cat in the sun. 

_No. God no._

He hadn't thought of Molly. He hadn't realized....

“I've been informed her plane will either land by the end of today, or tomorrow morning, depending on what can be arranged,” Hammings spoke casually, friendly even, but his blue eyes looked at Will over his glasses in a way that made the Omega feel like he was being inspected under a looking glass. The Omega lowered his eyes, twisted his fingers together and licked his dry lips at the sudden restlessness he felt inside the room. 

“Why is she coming _here_?”, he gritted, shooting another nervous glance at Hannibal. The Alpha appeared calm, undisturbed, but Will knew the depths behind those eyes like no other. “She is worried about you, obviously,” the Doctor explained with a gesture of his hand, and Will suppressed an open grimace. “She wants to see you.”

Will swallowed, as he rubbed the back of his neck with his fingers. No, she couldn't come here. It was simply too dangerous. What if Hannibal couldn't control his beast? What if the Alpha saw her as a rival, to seek out, and destroy? “She can't come here,” he gritted through his teeth, eyes no longer on Hannibal. “I'll meet her somewhere else.”

Hammings shook his head as he pushed his glasses back on his nose. “I'm afraid it's not safe for you to leave Doctor Lecter's presence at this moment,” he said, and beside him, Will could see Hannibal silently taking in the view of the room. “Your blood pressure is still low and your heart-rate is too feeble,” Hammings gave him a stern nod before he added; “You're going to need all the rest you can get, and stay near your Alpha at all times.”

There was a silence where Will looked at the old man taking his glasses off to wipe them on the hem of his coat, while adding a side note of: “In whichever way you please.” And Hannibal rumbled a growl, guns clicked again, and Will snarled “Don't,” at the repeat performance. Who he was yelling at was unclear, even to Will at this point, but he was endlessly grateful to see the Doctor straightening his jacket, and retreating from his bed.

“That's it for now,” he informed him. “You are being monitored at all times, so if your condition changes, I will return.” He ignored the foul expression on Will's face, as Dennis swallowed audibly beside him. “Otherwise, I'll be here again tomorrow.” Doctor Hammings buttoned his coat with a satisfied smile as he moved towards the door. “Good day, Mister Graham, Doctor Lecter.” His parting greetings were left unanswered, but the old Doctor hummed cheerfully under his breath as he stepped out of the cell. Before following after his colleagues, Dennis held up his hand to wave at him with a sympathetic smile on his tanned face. Will gave the guard another quick nod before he pushed himself further on the bed. And before the door had closed, Hammings had left the room and Hannibal had been uncuffed, Will turned himself with his face to the wall, curled up in the fetal position and pressing his lips so tightly together he knew they'd turned white. 

He wished for everyone to go away.

It didn't take long, however, for the mattress to dip, and for Hannibal to curl carefully behind him. Will's back didn't touch the Alpha's front, but their arms folded together, as did their legs, up to the point where Hannibal's hips slotted perfectly behind him.

Well, maybe not everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter....if this chapter was a person I would stomp it on the nose! :-P  
> I struggled with it and struggled with it, wrestled it while covered in olive oil, and slam-dunked it all through my living room! And it was onlyyy very late last night that I considered it done-ish. Then, I forced Peter to proofread it....LATE, so if there are mistakes I am so so sorry! And if it was chaotic, sappy and childish........well,....that's not that bad, actually!
> 
> I am still behind on the comments (insert cursewords of your choice), but I am catching up! I am I am I am! Answering all of them, with care, because I love every single one of them like a newborn kitten (that sometimes has those little claws that hurt you but you don't mind because AWW Kitten!!!) All my love!


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you afraid you will have to send her away?”, Hannibal continued in the same, breathy tone that swarmed with piranhas beneath smooth surface, “or that you will be tempted to leave with her?” 
> 
> Will winced against the mattress as his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth. “Stop,” he croaked beneath his breath, as Hannibal's arms squeezed tighter around him. “You think I'm leaving?”, Will bit through his teeth as he turned his head, grimacing when muscles protested and wounds throbbed, and catching Hannibal's envious eyes with punishing, blue ice. “You think I'm going anywhere?” Will knew he was snarling, but the toxic stir of that familiar narcissism in the Alpha's jealousy made him burn hot with fury. It reminded Will of the time Hannibal had made sure the life of his unborn child would be sadistically terminated, by stretching his fingers on the strings of the Verger family puppet theater. 
> 
> Golden brown as they appeared, the monster's eyes could turn bright green.

Will pretended to sleep. After Hannibal had fitted himself behind him, holding him tightly wherever it was safe to do, he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. There was still so much to discuss, but he was lost for words. He was lost on how to feel. He was lost on what to accept within himself. 

And now, the two worlds he had tried to keep separate were starting to bleed into each other.

Hannibal knew he was awake, Will had no doubt, and after a short twenty minutes of just holding on, he heard the Alpha drawing a breath behind his ear. “Are you afraid I will hurt her, or that you will?”, he asked him, hoarse and deep, with soft words that stung like thick, sharp needles. Will felt his lips trembling as he opened his eyes to stare at the safe, white wall.

“Are you afraid you will have to send her away?”, Hannibal continued in the same, breathy tone that swarmed with piranhas beneath smooth surface, “or that you will be tempted to leave with her?” 

Will winced against the mattress as his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth. “Stop,” he croaked beneath his breath, as Hannibal's arms squeezed tighter around him. “You think I'm leaving?”, Will bit through his teeth as he turned his head, grimacing when muscles protested and wounds throbbed, and catching Hannibal's envious eyes with punishing, blue ice. “You think I'm going anywhere?” Will knew he was snarling, but the toxic stir of that familiar narcissism in the Alpha's jealousy made him burn hot with fury. It reminded Will of the time Hannibal had made sure the life of his unborn child would be sadistically terminated, by stretching his fingers on the strings of the Verger family puppet theater. 

Golden brown as they appeared, the monster's eyes could turn bright green.

“I know what you're doing,” Will said accusingly, eyes unblinking on the silent Alpha. “And it's weak. It's childish.” And it was. It was also predictable. Hannibal was, after all, human enough to be a creature of habit. He was, in nature, a selfish, self-absorbed, perfectly disguised ego-maniac. His life had been a long journey of seeking out his own pleasures, and fulfilling them in spite, or in favor, of ruining others. No one else had mattered, and other people's pain had never reached deep enough to leave a dent. 

After Misha, he had been alone, a singular creature in a world of pigs and cows and flocks of sheep.  
But then came Will, who touched the Alpha so deeply he could play the harp on his nervous system, and old habits and instincts were no longer without risk. 

After their lives had crossed paths, Hannibal had felt pain, deeply so, in his helplessness concerning Will. Less and less he could count on his old methods of hunting, harming or killing whatever bothered him in life. He couldn't make Will love. He couldn't make him want him. He couldn't force him to understand him. And he couldn't leave him alone. The Alpha was slowly becoming more and more vulnerable for needing and wanting, craving, without having control. He had yet to find a way to deal with it, Will knew.

Hannibal's hand came down to support Will's neck when he saw the muscles trembling beneath the skin, and Will nuzzled against his touch the moment warm fingers grazed his skin. “Do you really want me to pledge myself to you, now?”, he asked, angry and desperate and swimming with butterflies that crawled up from his chest through his windpipe and filled the inside of his head. He looked at Hannibal, and saw them fluttering behind the honey eyes just as beautifully. “Before anyone else can get their hooks into me?” 

Hannibal finally blinked, and the golden swirl in his eyes darkened to bourbon. Will finally lowered his head back onto the pillow, his eyes on the wall, his throat thick with tears. “The first image in my mind, when Hammings told me Molly is coming, was you,” he admitted flatly into the silence. “Shredding her to pieces.”

Will gripped the arm around his shoulder when his Alpha tightened his grip, pulling them together as closely as possible as Hannibal pressed his lips against the back of Will's neck. Warm breath touched his skin as they lay together, before the Alpha spoke: “She won't enter this cell, Will”, coaxing a low whine from his mate, who leaned into the touch of lips that made him weak and pliant. 

“You and I both know you're not kept here by chains and locks and guns,” Will panted against the pillow, as Hannibal's lips opened on his skin. A flick of tongue brushed against that weak spot where the bone of his skull curled inwards and Will's lashes fluttered, his breathing deepened, his toes curled against the frame of the bed, feeling how the heat in his belly turned his insides to mush. 

Fuck, he was starving. He was desperately, pathetically craving touch, in spite of the nature of their conversation. He heard his own voice wavering when he said: “You don't need to be able to touch someone to hurt them, Hannibal”, and dropped his head back with a moan when the Alpha answered by sucking the skin of his neck between his lips, before rolling his hips against the Omega's barely covered ass. Will whimpered as his cock stirred beneath his medical gown, and his insides felt slippery wet with newly produced slick. 

“Will,” Hannibal's hand slid under his clothes, where it came to rest against his mate's quivering belly. “As we have discovered, my affection for you makes it increasingly difficult to bring you and those around you harm, in whatever way,” he spoke, almost spitefully, behind his ear. The fingers on Will's trembling abdomen were warm and strong and spread across his skin, as nails scratched lightly against the trail of hair beneath his bellybutton. 

“Increasingly?”, the Omega stuttered with a voice that was as embarrassingly high as it was tight, and the Alpha's hand traveled down where the lines of his body started to dip into a V. Hannibal had told him about the changes within them both, but he hadn't realized that it was an ongoing process still. They arched, they curved towards each other, yes. But where would that end? 

“Our bond strengthens,” Hannibal explained, dipping his lips to the curve of Will's shoulder. “My Alpha needs to grow.” Again, Hannibal let his hips roll against Will's in a search for contact. “And my love and loyalty for you are taking shape in a way no words can embody.”

Will's heavy breathing stopped altogether at the words, the warmth, the declaration freely uttered against his skin by his Alpha. Hannibal never wavered, or hesitated, as he spoke of love, not finding the slightest difficulty to speak openly about it. He hummed against Will's shoulder, pressed their skin together wherever he could manage without hurting his mate, and scratched gently at Will's trail of hair, thickening beneath the curve of his hips. _God._ Will only remembered to breathe when he started seeing spots, as he blindly pushed himself closer against Hannibal's swelling cock inside the cotton suit.

Hannibal had told him before, of course. He had spoken of love, and he had spoken of wanting forever. But none of those times, including this, had been a moment of confession, a flaying of his pride, or a frightened, fragile revelation. Hannibal loved him, and it had always been just that. Something well-known between them. Hannibal hadn't asked for him to say it back, or to acknowledge the emotion in him. He had always given it freely, and he had never pressed to see him take that love or reject it. It didn't change anything, after all. Hannibal would love him just the same.

And Will couldn't look back at him now to see what was happening inside those tiger eyes. He couldn't turn to him and blurt something out, in a conversation as painful as this. They were discussing Molly, of all people. He wouldn't know where to go from here. “What if you lose control?”, he asked instead, clenching under the Alpha's fingers trailing down to his pubic hair. “That can still happen.” The hand came to rest above the root of his cock, already thick and wet against his inner thigh. _Traitor._ Will trembled, his skin rosy warm with desire that ran so desperately deep he felt he could cry, while imagining what it would be like to flip himself over, straddle those hips and ride them both into absolute oblivion.

Away from everything else. 

Hannibal didn't touch Will's begging erection, but let his hand travel back up to his mate's chest instead, brushing fingers against a peaked nipple. “That would only happen if I feel you are harmed in any way, or taken from me,” he confessed, distraction hazing his voice, but evidently trying to keep himself in the discussion. Will appreciated his effort as much as he didn't. “Taken from you?”, he said, puzzled by the choice of words, but betraying his own wandering mind by arching into the fingers that pinched at his sensitive flesh. 

He wouldn't be _taken_ from Hannibal. The choice of words was all wrong. Curled against his mate, he chuckled into the sheets as he dropped his head against the Alpha's shoulder. _Taken._ His mother wasn't going to come by and _pick him up._ Molly wasn't going to strap him into his car seat. As much now as then, he was his own man, belonging to no one but himself. He wasn't their prisoner. He wasn't Hannibal's either. If he went, he walked. “What if I would leave, at my own initiative?”, he challenged his mate, wondering, after all that had happened and all that had changed, if Hannibal would just decide on killing them both, should he make that choice. Making him a true prisoner, after all.

Hannibal didn't release him, but his fingers stopped moving along his skin, his lips pulled back, and the strong muscles tensed around him. He sighed silently, making Will feel the hot stream of air against the wet skin of his neck. “If you choose to leave, you leave, Will,” he said, his voice soft, his words calm, his touch and voice controlled, and Will knew the painful amount of strength behind it. He knew, because he knew Hannibal, and because the hollow ache that contracted painfully inside his own chest was an echo of his Alpha's. They were connected, stronger than ever before.

Hannibal let his forehead rest against Will's curls. “I'll open the door for you myself, if it comes to it,” he breathed, and Will knew what he was getting at. Hannibal, too, had felt that Will may not have been as free to leave as he was before. He wanted Will to know he could walk, no matter the rules, no matter the consequences. “I have never stopped you before, nor will I ever.” The Alpha sighed empty air against his skin, and Will bit down on his bottom lip at the words. The gesture might have been one of the kindest, most sincere things Hannibal had ever allowed himself, and Will felt his stomach turning inside his body.

The idea sickened him, and by the way Hannibal swallowed heavily against him, pressing a hand against his own sternum, he knew he wasn't the only one who felt it. “I'm not going to do that,” Will couldn't stop himself from squeaking out between his tightened lips, before feeling Hannibal's hand spreading wider on his chest. The Alpha breathed shakily against him, and tears pressed behind Will's traitorous eyes. “I'm not going to do that,” he repeated, clearer, steadier this time, as Hannibal's fingers released their tension on his ribs.

A tear slipped down from Will's nose to the mattress, as he tried to pull his Alpha's skin closer against his. Front to back, lips on skin, hands on his body. Hannibal let himself to be guided by the desperate pulling arms of his mate, who sniffled against the pillow. “I'm not...... I'm not walking out,” Will croaked through gritted teeth, allowing another tear to fall as Hannibal kissed his neck, with soft, comforting lips that made Will smile his teeth bare against the mattress. His Alpha's hands stroked his belly in lazy circles, soothing him as well as himself with the contact, and the hollow pain lessened as the warm, rosy flutter blossomed inside their chest.

“You want me to know you have options. Choices,” Hannibal hummed groggily against his mate's neck when the tension had settled, and their heartbeats synchronized behind their ribs. Will breathed deep, shaky breaths. “I do,” he said, wishing it didn't matter. He was with Hannibal, and he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. But he would have to make a choice at some point. He had to find a way to make life work for him, and he couldn't just allow Hannibal to assume that choice was going to be a prison cell, or the life of a fugitive.

He had to make a choice, for himself, by himself, for it to mean something. And he wanted it to mean something. He did. Hannibal had told him before that he didn't want to make any choices and decisions in life, because he didn't want the responsibility. He had allowed things to just happen and unfold, and it left him with a whole life behind him that was gray, and easy and so ill-fitting it made him feel like he hadn't lived it.

“You do,” Hannibal murdered warmly against him while rubbing his hand lower down Will's pelvis. The Omega's breath hitched as his muscles fluttered against the pressure. He was alive, now. He felt alive. He couldn't allow things to just drift by him, without feeling what they did to him. Not anymore. Not after this, with Hannibal. He was going to feel, and think, and try, and he was going to choose his life. 

Soon... maybe.

“I don't want her to come here,” Will admitted against the pillowcase, helplessly pushing his body into the touch as he hid his face into the crisp, white fabric. “I don't.” His whispers were swallowed by the cotton, but Hannibal heard him and slid his hand up to his hip to squeeze around the bone. The Omega whimpered quietly at the pleasure that radiated from Hannibal's skin, deep into his own flesh, taking away everything that ached and whined and burned.

“It would only hurt her,” he breathed, when Hannibal stayed silent. “And me.” He closed his eyes, briefly, before turned his head and catching short strands of gray hair from the corner of his eye. “And you.” 

The Alpha reached to capture the corner of Will's lips with his own, folding himself over the Omega to avoid straining his mate any further. Will sighed into the Alpha's mouth, completely surrendering to the welcome kiss before opening his lips to brush gentle licks against whatever skin he could reach. The act was more animal than human behavior, and Hannibal purred with deep satisfaction at the nips at his cheek, as he brushed his lips from Will's temple to his ear. 

“You can show her what it does to you to be separated from me,” Hannibal told him as he nuzzled warmly behind his earlobe, and Will's shoulder jerked before he pushed his face back into the pillow where he released a stuttering, high-pitched whine. Show her? Show her what? The healing bruises on his skin, his steadily thumping heart, the way his eyes lit up whenever he and Hannibal touched, or kissed, and how they never allowed the other to be far from touch. 

No. Fuck no. The idea alone was enough to make his core muscles clench tightly around that ball of misery inside his stomach. He could make a real effort to try and explain some of what had happened to her, but it was beyond cruel to display. 

Hannibal felt him tensing up, and rumbled from deep inside his belly as he placed one hand back on Will's naked hip. “She chose to send you back to me,” the Alpha pressed. “I think she already has some notion of how our connection is designed.” Both shame and guilt flooded Will's chest as if the realization had punctured a hole in the great, black balloon he'd carried in his lungs. The Omega curled around that ball of misery, as he whimpered openly against his own hand. “Fuck,” he groaned, eyes wide on the white wall. The FBI had contacted her, of course. They could have told her anything, everything, by the time she would come here. 

“I was terrible,” Will pressed his palm to his forehead. “I was completely worthless to Molly during my time at home.” The confession was not more than a whisper, and mostly aimed at the very white wall, but Hannibal's hand squeezed the back of his leg in response. A nose rubbed against his jaw, and Will's lashes fluttered at the weakening need that spread inside him like a cloud. “I don't believe I finished a single sentence to her.” He swallowed, as his shoulders shook at the memory. He could have done so much more for her. He could have been so much better. He could have told her. He should have told her. Instead, he had done nothing, as he watched the threshold rising through the roof.

“You were very weakened,” Hannibal came to his defense with a gentle hum, as he rubbed deep circles up the back of Will's thigh. The pressing palm was slowly transgressing into the smooth flesh of the Omega's bare ass, and the touch was was enough to make Will's sigh turn into a breathless moan as his body clenched eagerly at the thought of those nearing fingers. “You were in my head,” he whined, feeling the slow circles nearing the crease of his soft, round cheeks. “All the time.”

Hannibal's fingers traveled to the edge of the line, allowing one fingernail to trail the sensitive flesh.  
“And you in mine,” the Alpha grunted, allowing a sliver of his own struggles to slip through, and Will took a deep, shaky breath at the memory of their separation. “It was hard to hear or see anything else,” the Omega admitted, wincing through the words as Hannibal's open hand squeezed his flesh. “It was all... you.” 

He swallowed, and pushed himself back when the hand came to still on his skin, just as Hannibal's free arm traveled under his neck and folded him into a whole embrace, hand resting on Will's collarbone.  
“I felt such guilt...”, the Omega said, lowering his eyes and trying to nuzzle against the arm, when his gaze fell on the Alpha's open hand. 

Hammings had commented on his mate needing treatment, but Will hadn't understood what he'd been referring to. He hadn't seen, until now. “What happened?”, he whispered, as he brought up a hand to cup Hannibal's with his. “What did you do?” The skin of his palm was almost black with short cuts made by the nails of a beastly claw, so deep he could see the discoloration on the other side, the back of the Alpha's hand. Bone deep, he had pushed his nails into himself, and the only care it had received, was Will's presence.

The flesh had closed, scarred around the bones, but the skin looked a sickly purple, and the flesh around the cuts was shredded and thick. “This looks brutal,” Will gasped, feeling his jaw weakening with the nauseating terror that rose at the sight. Hannibal had done this to himself, he knew. He had done it to try and kill whatever pain lived underneath. All alone, in his cell, he had endured the torture of their separation completely by himself, and it had reduced the all powerful, fearless and mighty Alpha to this. No one to hurt but himself. And Will had done it to them both.

“It's a reflection of the inside,” Hannibal said, an echo of his own words to Will, as he squeezed his hand shut, hiding the damage from his Omega's eyes. This time, the meaning of those words was pain. Bone-crushing, flesh-shredding, bound and broken pain. Will squeezed his eyes shut, and lowered his head to press his lips to the fist against his sternum. “Christ,” he pushed out, as tears welled up inside him, unstoppable, to spill between his lids onto the Alpha's skin. “I'm sorry.”

And this time, he did cry. For the first time in a long time, he finally cried. Tears streamed down his cheeks and sobs pushed from his throat as he curled inwards on the bed. And Hannibal held him, and kissed him wherever he could reach, and stroked him wherever it was safe, as the Omega's shoulders shook and audible sobs filled in the air. Will was so tired and they were so damaged, but they were here, together, at last. 

He had been through hell these past weeks. He was seriously injured, his marriage was at the brink of implosion, and he was unable to walk away from the murderer who had betrayed him so many times in a very short timespan. 

But what made him cry, what made him break, was seeing Hannibal damaged, because of him.

He couldn't stand to see him weakened, hurt, defeated. He never had. His Alpha was a far cry from a decent man, but Will realized more and better every day that the Alpha wasn't to be filed away as one thing or the other. He was good nor evil. Gentleman nor monster. Human nor beast.

But he was his.

Hannibal was his, that much was undeniable. And no one, not even the Alpha himself, was allowed to mistreat what belonged to Will Graham.

**

They fell into a pitch black slumber after Will had finally calmed inside the Alpha's embrace. Hannibal had never stopped his soothing touches, his hushed noises, the kisses against his ear, until Will had gone completely slack in his arms, where they had both sunk down into a dreamless sleep.

The arrival of lunch had ripped them right back out.

“I'd like to wash you,” Hannibal said when they emptied the tray while sitting at the table. Will had quickly discovered that sitting the opposite way on a chair was the most comforting position for him to take. Support against his chest, nothing on his back. 

Both in serious need of nutrition, they were eating their sandwiches, and rather than sitting opposite each other Hannibal had pushed their chairs together. This way, they could reach out and touch whenever they felt the need.

And there was need. There was constant need. Their fingers remained linked throughout.

The statement made Will blink as he rose his head up from his arms. “I'm sure I can't get these wet,” he said, pointing at the bandages on his cheek as Hannibal's fingers slid up his neck. “By the sink,” he Alpha said. “I promise I'll be careful.” 

At that, Will winced and pushed his nose into the crook of his arm before inhaling deeply. “Do I smell?”, he asked pained, feeling a spark of shame brushing the inside of his belly as he recalled how close they had been, and how flawless Hannibal's sense of smell always was.

But the Alpha groaned at the display, leaning forward on his chair to nuzzle against Will's scent gland with a deep, theatrical inhale. “I could bathe in your scent,” Hannibal hummed against him, brushing his teeth over the sensitive flesh. “But there is Dragon blood in your hair I would like see circle down the drain.” Teeth smiled against Will skin, who wrinkled his nose at the thought. 

“Agreed.”

Hannibal helped him off the chair by folding an arm under his shoulder, and even though walking remained painful, Will found his body more compliant in the arms of his mate. Hannibal was not as strong as he had been, similarly recovering from their separation, but together they managed to find their way to the bathroom, where Will was seated on the counter beside the sink.

Heat crept up his face at the memory of this place, where Hannibal had fucked him so mercilessly Will had begged him for a bite. It seemed like ages ago, but the scar of teeth was still bright on his shoulder, and he doubted the mark would ever fade completely. Hannibal smiled knowingly as he reached for a washcloth, a towel, soap and shampoo, before turning on the tap to let the water run, and heat up.

“She saw the bite mark,” Will disclosed, his eyes on his knees as Hannibal helped him remove the medical gown down his arms, brushing a thumb over the print of his own teeth in Will's flesh. Will didn't look up to see Hannibal's face, but when the Alpha spoke, his voice was unmistakably proud, and possessive. “Everyone should see my mark,” he answered, as he dipped his head to mouth at the gland of Will's throat. “Right here.”

The Omega swallowed hard against the mouth on his skin as he gasped quietly in the silent bathroom. His throat throbbed, as if expressing a need with a mind of its own, and his lips grazed the Alpha's silver hair as he closed his eyes, concentrating on that wet heat on his skin. He didn't correct the Alpha. He didn't say anything to confirm or deny his words. Instead, he seated himself a little steadier on the counter, as his hands firmly gripped the edge.

The gown was folded and placed on the counter, leaving him completely naked, vulnerable, wounded, and with his cock half hard against his thigh. It had been like that since his return, and he knew for a fact that the Alpha was in the same predicament, to the same extent. Prison jumpsuits were thin, and Hannibal was big. It wasn't difficult to spot the outlines against cotton, or feel the curve of him against the crease of his ass when they lay in bed together and...

_Oh God._

His bare erection twitched against his inner thigh with delightful interest, and Will took a deep breath and forced himself to stop thinking about being naked, being aroused, being near Hannibal's big, hard, Alpha cock. _Fuck._ He knew his face was flushed pink and he tried to stare at a random spot on the cream tiles ahead.

Hannibal was pretending not to notice his state, Will had no doubt, as he wet the cloth under the tab, rubbed the soap into the fabric, and wordlessly started stroking Will's skin from fingertips to shoulder pits. 

“Hannibal.” Will said, calming himself as he lowered his eyes to the white trail of soap on his skin. The Alpha flashed his gaze up in acknowledgment, as Will struggled to find the right words. “T-The Dragon,” he managed to stutter, and as quickly as the Alpha had looked at him, as quickly his eyes flashed back down. “He... he wanted to use your life force in the ritual of releasing his inner Alpha,” Will continued as he watched his mate nod, once, with a hint of a twitch around his lips. “He did,” he confirmed, brushing his hands over Will's naked chest.

Will held on to Hannibal's arm as the Alpha leaned closer to wash the back of his shoulders, and pulled him against the counter to press his good cheek against the cotton suit. “He considered only you worthy of bringing The Dragon inside him to life,” he murmured meekly against his mate, and Hannibal's chest rumbled gently as he washed the soap near Will's stitches with clean precision. “He wanted me to understand the honor it was to be chosen as a sacrifice to something so powerful,” he spoke pleasantly, gently wetting Will's hair before adding a drop of shampoo.

Will closed his eyes as fingers massaged against his skull, and allowed Hannibal's hands to take the weight of his head. “Is it possible, to do what he wanted to do?”, he asked, fluttering his eyes open when Hannibal rinsed his hair with small additions of water and very careful, patient hands in order to not get any bandages wet. “Make himself both Omega and Alpha?”

Hannibal brushed his hair with a towel to avoid the water from dripping on the stitches, before he reached for Will's ankle and started washing up the Omega's leg. First his feet, then up his calf, and the feeling made Will's eyes widen and his muscles clench as he peeked down at his red, filling cock between his legs. The slit was already leaking pearly white drops, and he swallowed nervously against his throat. “It was to him,” Hannibal answered, undisturbed as he washed behind his Omega's knees. “Everything is possible, if you refuse to believe anything else.” Their eyes met, both reaching out to connect, before Hannibal started to lather his thighs. “To him, I believe the ritual would have been successful, no matter the outcome.”

The Alpha moved up his mate's soapy thighs without making a single indication he was aware of the Omega's aroused state. Will gritted his teeth, as his legs were washed from the underside of his feet to his hips on the counter. “He frightened me,” he confessed, as Hannibal reached for a clean cloth to brush against Will's good cheek. “He never will again,” the Alpha murmured, eyes on Will's forehead before he brushed the skin around the stitches.

“Is he dead?”, Will dared to ask the one question he needed an answer to, and felt his own fingers tightening on the edge of the counter as Hannibal brushed the cloth down his throat. Only then did the Alpha lower the washcloth, and pull his head back to look back into Will's frightened, widened eyes. “Yes,” he said, dropping the fabric between his fingers on the counter, without losing contact. 

“Tell me,” Will demanded between stiff lips, hooking his gaze onto Hannibal, forcing him to stay. The eyes were soft and gold, light and pain, blood and honey. Beautiful.

“He's dead, Will,” Hannibal told him, and Will's shoulders shook at the memory of those claws digging into his face, into his back, and the terror he had felt after Hannibal's call. “Promise me,” he breathed, as Hannibal came to grip above his knees to keep him from slipping. The Alpha smiled at the trembling lips, as he cupped Will's face with one hand. “What he is now, is my sacrifice to you,” he said, teeth sharp in his mouth as Will stared at his mate. “My gift.”

Will blinked – dazzled, confused – and reached out to frame Hannibal's face with his hands. He didn't find any words to speak, but his mate brushed his lips to his cheek before he said: “I hope they will unwrap it soon, so you can see it for yourself.” The Alpha's voice was almost hoarse with pleasure, and Will's lashes fluttered in responds. 

He felt, if possible, even more exposed than he had before. Naked, wounded and lost in a world where they were coming for them from every angle. They were lashing at them, disapproving and experimenting, and the thought made panic rise in his throat. Hannibal was the only one to understand him. Hannibal was the only one able to protect him. He knew Hannibal was what he needed, but what would be the price? Could he allow himself to trust him? Could he allow himself to give him everything?

“Hannibal?”, Will whimpered, reaching fingers into the Alpha's hair as he pulled him closer. His eyes were wide and moist as he gazed up at his mate. “Do you love me?” His voice broke on the words, his breath stuttered and his shoulders shook, but Hannibal watched him, surprise stirring sparks in his eyes. Then, a smile pulled wide on his lips, dazzled and dazzling, struck by the question. The Alpha's bared teeth brushed Will's lips as he pushed closer, as he allowed his hands to curl around the Omega's throat.

“I've been locked away for many of my fruitful years on this Earth for you,” he breathed against Will's cheek. “And would have until forever.” Will whimpered like a small animal as his Alpha nuzzled against the side of his nose. “I would call that more than love,” Hannibal spoke, his voice heavy and smooth like good bourbon, “I would call it worship.”

And at last, their lips met into a true, passionate kiss that had Will whining from the back of his throat, as his thighs trembled on the counter. There was no biting, no teeth, not this time. It was soft and wet and beautiful as they stroked with tongues and sucked desperately gentle on lips and skin.

“Hannibal,” Will could only sigh with a needful whine when all his emotions, fears and arousal came together into a tangle, as he clawed at Hannibal, needing him close enough to be able to breathe his air. He wanted him, desperately. He wanted everything. “Touch me,” he begged when Hannibal's hands remained around his throat, and he pushed his hips forward to give the Alpha directions. They had done foreplay. They had had it non-stop since the moment Hannibal brought him back from his own mind. Already, he was ready to burst.

The Alpha pulled back until their foreheads rested together, locking their heated eyes before he looked down between them, and reached for Will's weeping, throbbing cock. “Fuck, yes,” Will groaned at the contact of those strong fingers on his hot, sensitive flesh, and felt his ass clenching around a drip of slick that poured from his body. 

He almost sobbed into his mate's shoulder when he felt the Alpha shivering against him, hands strong but helplessly twitching on the Omega's hard, wet shaft. He, too, was lost and scared and hopelessly enslaved to this desperate, hankering desire. Will spread his legs wider as Hannibal folded his hand around him, squeezing and pumping him in a way that made Will's hips buckle and his knees tremble. He whimpered, already boneless with pleasure that tightened his balls against his body, as he reached out to squeeze the large bulge inside his mate's prison suit.

“Let me touch you,” Will pleaded with a moan, and bit his lip when Hannibal groaned heatedly at the unexpected command, biting his lips before reaching for his buttons. The journey down was fast, violent almost, as Hannibal yanked the buttons through the holes and let the fabric fall from his shoulder, down to his ankles. “Fuck,” Will moaned chokingly at the sight of him, and remembered all the angles of his mate when he'd stared at him in the shower. Pure, primal, perfection. 

“So big,” Will breathed when Hannibal stepped back between his legs, and the Omega pushed himself to the edge of the counter, spreading his legs even further and leaning himself back to allow their cocks to align. His ass was slippery wet against the stone surface, and he moaned quite obscenely when Hannibal's fingers grazed his exposed hole to collect slick on his fingers. Two digits danced around the rim, before his mate brought his hand back to encircle both their touching shafts, with lubricated fingers. 

“Fuck,” Will breathed again as he watched Hannibal's thick, large size press wholly against him, using his hand to press them both together between the slick that made their flesh shimmer in the bathroom light.

“Fuck, you're big,” he panted again, as he sank almost down to his elbows, watching them rub together inside Hannibal's large, strong hand. It hardly fit to hold them both completely, but the friction was cruelly wonderful, and three strokes in, Will was already feeling a fire starting to spread behind his pelvis. 

Hannibal's face was damp with sweat as he pumped his hand on them, eyes hazy and lips parted, as they both started to rock their hips against each other to speed up the rhythm. “Will,” the Alpha groaned before he reached out for Will's hand to take in his, wrapping fingers of both around their sliding cocks, until they were completely enveloped. Hannibal's foreskin stroked against Will's pulsing head, and he whined desperately between his teeth at the feeling of the hard yet soft slide of slick skin. 

A tongue licked at Will's bruised lip, swollen where his mate had bitten down before, and Hannibal brought their mouths together for a full kiss that sealed their lips and allowed their tongues to meet in the joined space between. It made Will's insides spasm with weakening pleasure that turned his bones to burning liquid as he sped up his strokes, clinging to Hannibal and helpless against pumping his hips into their joined hands. 

Hannibal groaned, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, as he pressed his forehead back to Will and nipped passionately lost at the line of his jaw. “Yes, oh God.” Will clawed at his Alpha, as his head fell back at the multiple sensations of wet, sliding, sensitive skin. “Please,” he rasped, as a fire sparked inside his belly that was ready to combust into fireworks, as he lost himself completely in the hot, solid weight of his Alpha's slick cock pumping and sliding against him.

Fingers reached behind Will's balls, probing at the skin, and Will buckled when two fingertips pushed inside his body. “Fuck, Hannibal,” he moaned at the surprise invasion, unable to look down himself, but feeling the digits slide in with much ease through plentiful slick. He moaned when the tips crooked inside, and Will lifted himself a little higher with the support of Hannibal's arms, allowing the Alpha to target his prostate. “So good...” 

He arched up, ignoring his stitches, as he pumped his hand faster and tighter around them and moved his body back on those sinful fingers on his sweet spot. “Will?”, he heard Hannibal painting against him, and he pulled back to watch the Alpha's eyes blow wide enough to turn black. His face was pink, his skin was damp, the muscles of his belly twitched franticly and his cock was turning a vicious shade of purple. 

He was so ready. His mate wanted so badly to let go, but he was holding back with great restraint, waiting for his Omega to be there with him. Hannibal was completely abandoned against him, and the sight was, without a doubt, the most honest and raw sexual vision Will had ever witnessed. And as control left his body, he felt his ass tightening hard around the fingers inside him, his hand around their swollen, leaking cocks, and his balls against his body. “Yes, fuck, yes,” he keened, as his hips stuttered and his stomach spasmed, holding on to both of them as he watched the first drop of pearly white cum dripping over the head of his cock. 

Hannibal groaned so deep, it sounded like a warning growl from the true wild lion, before he pressed them together, looking down at the white stream of semen that flowed from the Alpha, so plentiful it splashed down onto the floor with a wet noise, as it mingled and spilled between them both. 

Will watched them both flowing, dripping with cum as their bodies jerked into each other, and both of them growled and whined their pleasure like animals as a deep, healing yet wrecking power overtook their bodies as one. Blooming life and blood and light inside them as the heads touched, dripping on each other most obscenely and their lips pressed into a kiss of nothing but lips and breath. 

They continued to moan their pleasure as seed dripped down their joined hands until every last drop was pulled from them, and their muscles sagged. They both slumped against each other, Will's forehead on Hannibal's shoulder, as they finally let go, and used their dirty hands to cling at the other's flesh. 

Will had closed his eyes, overcome with utter peace, until he heard Hannibal speak his name, forcing him to open his eyes, and look into determined, amber eyes. “It is normal for an Alpha to have genitals larger in size than an Omega or human male,” he breathed, eyes stroking Will's as if trying to reassure him, and Will blinked his widened eyes. The Alpha seemed to think the heated compliment came from his own insecurity. But Will wasn't doubting himself. Not there. He was, by no means small for an Omega. He wasn't even small for a human. But his Alpha, he was otherworldly,

“It is largely due to the increased hormonal release...”, Hannibal tried to continue, until Will snorted a chuckle, and pushed himself up to kiss his mate, warm and wet, on the lips. “You're not one for dirty talk, are you?”, he huffed a laugh, and this time, it was Hannibal's eyes that widened at his mate's remark. Will reached out, wanting to be back in his Alpha's embrace, as he pressed a smile against Hannibal's neck. They sat there, in sticky, dirty silence, until Hannibal cleared his throat against his rosy mate's cheek.

“I love how I can wrap my entire hand around you,” Hannibal breathed against his ear, a second attempt at Will's game. “You are perfect.” And Will chuckled again, skin tightening to goosebumps, face buried against his mate's neck. The words made him feel dizzy, hazy, on the edge of tears and laughter, joy and pain and climax, as Hannibal kissed him beneath his ear and pulled back to look down their dripping, sticky bodies.

“I may need to wash you again.”


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You saved me,” he told her as he folded his hands together on the table. It was important, so very important, that she knew. She saved his life. She made a sacrifice the size of which she had yet to comprehend, and she had saved them both.
> 
> “Yes,” Molly said, tilting her head, as the corners of her lips twitched. “By sending you into the Lion's den.” Her eyebrows arched once, as if to challenge him to contradict her, or perhaps with a hope of a confirmation that, yes, this was the Lion's den, and he wanted to get out. 
> 
> “You saved my life, Molly,” Will pressed, briefly considering using 'our', but unable to get the three letters past his lips. Ours. Him and Hannibal. Our cell, our chains, our suffering, our theatrics. That was something that still bounced like a ball between the walls of his locked mind. “I don't know what to say.” Because what was there to say, really? Thank you? Thank you for saving your husband's life, who can no longer give you what you deserve or require.
> 
> Thank you for saving me, for someone else.

They washed, they dressed, and they lingered between the white walls where the world couldn't see them. Hannibal retrieved the extra jumpsuit that had arrived with their lunch tray, and the fabric slid carefully over the bandages on Will's back, guided by his Alpha's precise, surgeon hands.

“The skin surrounding your stitches is unusually rough to the touch,” Hannibal said, as he brushed light fingertips around the cut on Will's cheek. “I wonder...” But the Omega clucked his tongue impatiently against the roof of his mouth, tilting his head away from the probing hand on the sensitive flesh. Hannibal _didn't_ wonder. “He burned me,” Will rushed in between Hannibal's words as he flinched openly at the memory of the flames that had licked his skin, every time The Dragon came near.

Will watched his mate's eyes narrowing on the red stripes of singed skin. “His touch felt like fire,” the Omega swallowed, licking his lips with his raw tongue. “He tasted like it, too.” It suddenly clicked inside his mind why his throat was thick and sore, and his tongue felt numb and dry inside his mouth. He had thought it to be from the tube they had shoved inside his larynx, but the memory of blood scorching down his throat and burning him from mouth to stomach, came rushing back with his own confession. He had touched fire, and there had been no poetry about it. It was the pain of grabbing a hot pan on the stove, or holding a hand in the flame of a candle.

Hannibal's fingers brushed down to Will's chin and caught his bottom lip with the width of his thumb, where Will tried to hide his smile before catching the finger with blunt teeth. “What do I feel like, to you?”, he asked, drawing courage from the mischief he saw dancing in the lion eyes as he followed the hands that pulled from his cheek with a longing gaze. The question had been swimming round and round inside his head, ever since he had come to Hannibal with that biting rash on his hands and throat.

Hannibal's lips twitched, as he folded Will's collar down with the precision of a man dressing his partner for tea with the Queen. “You are the stream,” he said, and his amber eyes melted into a swirl of earthly colors. “You are the quiet, soothing stream that brings peace into every pore and crease of body and soul alike.” Will forgot to blink as Hannibal reached to cup the left side of his face, looking at him with open pleasure in the bourbon vortex of his eyes. “You are the sharp rocks beneath my feet, and the bone deep shiver when the wind blows, and the clouds fall.” Their eyes locked, and Will could see the challenge around his mate's lips as he stared back at him in silence. 

The words reminded Will of that meeting in his hotel room, all those years ago. 

_“How do you see me?”  
“The mongoose I want under the house when the snakes slither by.”_

Hannibal brushed Will's nose with a warm thumb, before running it down his chin to place it firmly against the curve. “Like all true beauty in life, the river lies between inferno and paradise,” he spoke with a glint in his earthly eyes before placing a kiss to Will's parted lips. The Omega felt himself shaking beneath the touch, as he arched into his Alpha with a needful whimper. The words were magnificent, and cruel, and he understood the sentiment _exactly_. He wouldn't, couldn't have vocalized it this way, but he recognized the conflict Hannibal was trying to express.

Pain within love. Passion and desperation. Uncertainty and need. As much of it pain as it was beauty. Being lost without the other, means everything to lose. 

Hannibal didn't ask the question in return as they parted from soft, warm, brushing of lips. Maybe he already knew what he felt like to Will. Maybe he was afraid of the answer. Maybe his head was already somewhere else.

“I can only imagine what my touch would feel like to a rival Alpha,” Hannibal said, readjusting buttons on Will's suit, who grimaced openly at the thought. He was thoroughly done with rivals. “Like death, I imagine,” he said as he reached for Hannibal's hands to stop his fidgeting. “Your enemies would drop dead with as much as a blink and a sneeze from you,” he added, a glint of mockery in his smiling eyes. The Alpha's lips curved up, stroked by the words, and Will wondered if he had ever heard Hannibal sneeze. Even blinking seemed a rare occasion. “They would suffocate in your presence, is what I mean to say.” The Omega huffed a laugh as he fisted hands on the fabric covering Hannibal's waist, almost able to see his proud Alpha's peacock feathers burst open all around him. 

“Then allow me to suffocate you,” Hannibal purred like a lion, golden eye glowing orange with hunger as he brought his hands against his mate's throat and leaned in to brush his fangs against his skin, his bones, his chin, his cheek and nose. Nothing heated. Nothing frantic. But desperate, always, even when their lips brushed with the slow tenderness of a languid dance. They held on, they smiled and felt the bliss of being together in that gentle stream without the clouds and rocks. Away from uncertain futures.

**

When they stepped out, Hannibal supporting Will with an arm around his shoulder, they were surprised by the sight of a visitor behind the glass. Seated on a chair, legs crossed, notepad in hand. “Alana,” Will said, eyes widening as he witnessed her sitting behind the glass. He hadn't seen her, or remembered seeing her, since she had given him the ticket for a flight home. 

Now he was _here_ again, and she looked liked she hadn't slept in days.

“Hannibal, if you could bring over a chair for Will,” Alana said, gesturing towards the table before pointing at the spot across from her, separated by the thick, clear wall. His mate didn't like to be ordered around, and Alana's tone had been somewhat... disconnectedly stern, but apart from his tightening eyelids, there was no hesitation in the Alpha's movements as he complied, and grabbed a chair for his Omega. 

The Alpha remained by his side, on his feet, even after the moment he had helped Will into his seat, front to the backrest, but Alana ignored his presence as she held her eyes on Will alone. “I'm sorry about what happened,” she said, not unkind or insincere, but with nervous twitches of her lips that wrung her smile into a grimace. “You must be in a lot of pain.” Will leaned his arms on the backrest, and felt the cooler air in the cell pulling at his stitches. 

Hannibal didn't wait for him to work out a reply, as he towered over their seated frames and folded his hands behind his back. Forever casting the shadow of a pyramid while dressed in the bones of a human man. “What is it, precisely, you are so sorry for, Alana?”, he asked her, straightening his ramrod straight shoulders and tilting his chin with a stabbing point. Dangerous bubbles beneath the calm water, and Will's gaze flashed up towards those coffee darkened eyes. His mate was not taunting or poking for the purpose of his own entertainment. This was perfectly controlled fury.

If the back of the chair did not spread his legs, he would have tightened his thighs together.

Alana didn't look to meet Hannibal, but Will could see her swallowing down fear before she, too, straightened her back on her elegant, wooden chair. Will noticed her suit was all black, and her pumps were a boring match. She was business, today. “I was hoping being at home would do you good,” she confessed with tightened lips, red nails tapping nervously against the notepad as her blue eyes flashed dark. It could be guilt, Will thought, just as it could be self-preservation. “If I'd known you were in this kind of danger...” 

“What would you have done, Alana?”, Hannibal asked, razing over her moment of hesitation with needles to the edge of his curt voice and Will could see his Alpha's teeth clenching behind his skin. Alana rose her head with quick fury, finally allowing her eyes to meet the man that had caused her all those sleepless nights. Blue eyes were fire, but her sharp gaze only lingered on her prisoner for a brief moment, before she turned back to Will, and allowed her eyes to soften on him. “If I had known you would be hunted down by another Omega, I wouldn't have let you leave,” she said, folding her hands with pained contrite as her fingers clutched her pen.

Will's lips tightened at the words, no matter how kindly meant, as he licked at his dry, cracked lips with the tip of his tongue. She wouldn't have let him leave? “I'm not a prisoner here, Alana,” he corrected, catching her eyes and watching them widen. “I would have left, regardlessly.” Because he would have. There were worse things to overcome than guards and locks and even hunting Omega's with the breath of a Dragon. What had been the hardest part, was walking away from his Alpha mate. And he had done it, even when it had almost killed him. 

Alana should have known better than to still see him as the little, lost stray. Will was no longer lost in this big, gray world. He was a wolf. He had a place. He had white light and black shadows all around him.

And he didn't look for anyone to guide him. “As long as you are injured...”, Alana tried to wriggle around his words. “I think it is best we keep a close eye on you.” Her offer was professional, with a dash of that kind pity that made Will tighten his toes on the wooden floor. “You always do,” he retorted, flashing eyes up to the red, blinking light on the ceiling. Hannibal remained silent beside him, but he felt the Alpha's heat and strength radiating against his own skin, and knew his mate was all attention.

“You will receive all the medical care you need,” Alana held up her notepad to point at a timetable she had scribbled down. Probably while they were in the bathroom, with their hands all over each other. Will wondered how loud he had been, this time as he watched Alana rip a page from the notebook before walking to the drop box to slide in the medical schedule. He, nor Hannibal, made a move to retrieve it, but both watched the head of the prison sink back into her chair with tightly wound features.

“This is the best I can do,” she said, almost defeated, as her fingers danced restlessly on the notebook. “You need to stay close to each other, and that limits the options to this cell.” And of course she was right. Hannibal didn't disagree, and neither could Will. But he did wonder what would change, the moment he was recovered enough to step out. Buy some groceries, watch a movie, get that much needed haircut. Would she trust him not to abuse that access, find a way out for his Alpha?

Would he?

“Thank you, Alana,” he said with a nod, and watched her re-seat herself on her classical, wooden chair. She received his nod, answered it with one of her own and folded her hand atop that opened notebook. Hannibal was motionless, the dead tree in the wind.

“Your wife is on her way,” Alana told him.

Will knew that. He knew this was why Alana was here. He had known from the moment he had seen her sitting behind the glass. 

But the squeezing fist in his belly pulled tight regardlessly.   
He swallowed burning acid back down his throat, regardlessly. 

Hannibal breathed in deep beside him, and he wished he could reach out to hold on to his hand. But he didn't. He didn't want to show her how much he needed him. Not here, not without the camouflage of the distant monitor, because the more she knew, the more she could take away.

“When will she be here?”, he asked instead, watching her glance down on the paper and tracing the lines with her red nails. He didn't remember them looking that long or painted back when they had been friends. Maybe Margot liked them that way. “She's already been picked up from the airport, so she's on her way here,” she said, and Will watched her throat work beneath the skin. She was nervous, unsure of the reactions, the emotions, and therefore the actions. Alana didn't like not knowing. Wasn't that why she had pursued the career of a psychiatrist, to begin with? To coddle the good dogs, and to locate the vicious?

“She will arrive in about twenty minutes.” 

Will remained motionless in his seat, finding it hard to breathe through his tightened throat, his squeezing lungs. At last, he turned his focus to his mate.

Hannibal looked back with eyes as unreadable as the liquid amber inside a glass of Scotch. “Do you not _want_ to see her?”, Alana asked him when he didn't respond, but kept his eyes on the stoic Alpha beside him.

“I do,” he whispered, the words tasting like ashes in his mouth. Of course he did. After all that had happened, he had to speak to her. It should be soon rather than later. “Just... not here.” Will flashed his eyes around the cell, resting again on his silent Alpha. Hannibal's scent was swarming around him, stronger than usual, and Will wondered if the beast was marking territory at the mere idea of his wife coming to meet him.

“You can't leave this cell,” Alana said, firmly shaking her head as she followed his eyes to Hannibal. “Doctor Hammings says it's too soon for you to be apart.” Will felt a clawing panic rising in his throat when his mate refused to show him the depth of his eyes. _Fuck_. He didn't want... but he needed to see her, without Hannibal. Not before she understood. Or before he had found the words to explain it to her.

“Yeah, you know what Hammings can do with his _medical opinions_?”, he snarled off his frustrations at Alana's righteous expression, and quickly searched his brain for a foul insult that wouldn't make him look like he had only just grown his first pubic hair. He would try. He would leave the cell for just a moment. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. He would try, and if it didn't work...

“The bathroom,” Hannibal's voice rang smoothly from behind him, and Will twisted in his seat fast enough to make him hiss from the pulled, cutting stitches that burned against his wounds. “What?”, he blinked, frowning low enough to see his own eyebrows as he widened his eyes on his, appearance-wise, perfectly collected mate.

At first, he confused Hannibal's reaction as a response to his question, until he looked at his mate next to him and watched the Alpha, ever so calm in exterior, holding coffee-grind eyes on Alana.

“Well...”, she hesitated, ticking her pen against her maroon lips as her blue eyes finally rose to meet the Alpha. “I suppose...”, she said, balancing her head from side to side in a contemplation Will didn't understand. He snarled again, pushing his lips over his fangs as he turned his eyes back and forth between them. In a way, it was like sitting back at Hannibal's dinner table.

He jolted with surprise when Hannibal's fingers came to rest on his shoulder, and turned his body sideways to meet the Alpha's eyes, a thick, golden honey he seemed to save only for him. 

_Oh._

“I can wait in the bathroom,” Hannibal said, perfectly decent, in a way that resembled eating something absolutely horrid, but not wanting to offend the cook. “While you speak with her here.”

Will felt himself silencing from his restless core to his twitching hands to the curling toes against the hardwood floor. They all went slack. “No, I....”, he stuttered, shaking his head in confusion as he watched his Alpha's proud, straight stance, and the so carefully hidden fight inside his strong, dignified mate – offering him a piece of things most dear to him; control, trust and dignity. 

He didn't want Hannibal and Molly in the same space. Not while he and Molly talked about the things that could slice through hearts, well up tears, or while she might feel the need to hold his hand. He would be worried, terrified, of what Hannibal would say to her in those moments, what he would reveal or how well he would be able to keep his control. Will didn't want to hurt Molly, and he was certain Hannibal would not have that same concern. 

But the idea of keeping him in the bathroom like a misbehaving pet... tasted sour in his mouth. Hannibal was a majestic, mighty lion, not a poodle with a bladder problem.

“It's an option,” Alana said, nodding with her pen against her cheek, and Will inhaled deeply through his nose, shifting his eyes from one to the other. Molly was coming. She was almost here, and he wasn't even sure what he was going to say to her. He wasn't sure if this was the last time they would meet, on speaking terms. He shivered his exhale through his lips as he glanced back at the bathroom door. “I don't see...”, he stammered, his face pained with the excessive frown he was tightly holding on to. 

Two fingers brushed across the bridge of his nose, making Will's eyes flash up to Hannibal above him, a soothing, smooth gold hiding his painful control. Hannibal wanted him to have this option, even if he didn't like it. “The door locks from the outside with a mechanism controlled by the control room,” he said, matter-of-factly, flashing his attention to Alana when she interjected with a straightforward: “That would be me.”

Hannibal was offering him a gift of selflessness, and it came from the deep, near-empty barrel his mate had hoped to never have to dig up from the depths of his soul.

“You want to wait, locked in the bathroom, while I talk with Molly?”, Will tried to register what was on offer, and Hannibal sucked his bottom lip against his teeth, eyes traveling from his own feet to the ceiling, lingering on empty white. “ _You_ want to talk to her, _without me_ ,” he spoke carefully, but Will didn't miss the strategically placed emphasis. “This would be the only option.”

Will flinched. The offer was genuine, and so was the petty price. “And you're just... gonna take a shower?”, he asked, raising an eyebrow at the vision of his mate with his ear pressed to the door.  
“He will be cuffed,” Alana said, bouncing the leg that crossed her knee. “We'll place a temporary camera in the room.” Her blue eyes were straight and stern on Hannibal as she spoke the words, but the Alpha didn't pay her the attention she was demanding, and kept his eyes on all things dull and drywalled. 

Will felt his heart settle beneath his Adam's apple, thumping fast and sickening against his windpipe. “I don't... I don't know,” he almost whined, as he scratched the back of his neck with a lost arm. _Fuck_. She was on her way. She was almost here, and part of him wanted to hide inside that bathroom with Hannibal, until she had returned to the airport for the next flight home.

“Why do you doubt?”, Hannibal asked him evenly, finally looking back at his mate down the bridge of his nose and exposing the fragility between the cracks of gold, unwanted, always open to Will. “Because I don't want to make you wait in the bathroom while I'm in here with my wife,” the Omega snipped, scowling at everything in sight as he rubbed fingers along the cut on his pulling cheek.

_God. Fuck._ His words felt wrong, and Will wished so badly his mate would understand without needing the explanation that there was not going to be any... _Oh Jesus_. He sighed, feeling the air quivering against his lips before he swallowed against the pounding in his throat. “I'm not...”, he breathed, pressing an open palm to one side of his face. He felt two pairs of eyes on him. One judging, one hurting. “I just want to try and make her understand this.”

When he looked at his mate, Will saw the black rim of an aura around him. It was the beast through the man, and it froze his breath in his throat. It happened sometimes, when he looked for it, but the dark outline to the pale shape was hauntingly beautiful, and devastatingly dangerous. He licked his lips, suddenly nervous at the idea of the huge beast behind the door. His fingers twitched against his legs as he said, “Can I trust you to...?”

But Hannibal's teeth flashed sharp and bright at his choice of words, before he bent forward, bringing them nose to nose as his eyes blew black. “What I am trying to do is give you the space you require,” he growled, body taunt and hard. “Trust me when I say that the offer does not come easy to me.”

Will gasped against his mate's lips, as he reached to grab for his suit, but the Alpha had already stepped back from him, squinting his eyes, pursing his lips, folding his arms across his chest. If he weren't so beautiful, so proud and strong and willing to think of Will's needs and plan accordingly, he would have looked like a toddler with a tantrum. Hannibal was that beast, always, as he was a perfectly crafted human in a suit. But deep inside, the devil burned bright with childish needs. 

He understood what Hannibal wanted. It was selfless and selfish all wrapped in one dish. If he couldn't kill Molly, then burn the bridge. Throw the baggage in the river. Move forward, as one.

“Fine,” he said. 

“Let's do it.”

**

It was strange to see her walk through that door, meeting his eyes through the wall of glass. Outlandish. Like a checkers piece on a chessboard, or a single sunflower in a field of weeds. She looked pale, and her hands clutched her jacket to her chest as she followed behind the guard, both bewildered and determined.

Molly.

Her nervous eyes never left his as she waited for the door to the cell to be opened. They were wide and lost, red with veins, dark ring around her blue irises, corners twitching with suppressed anxiety and pain. 

Molly.

He wanted to help her. He wanted to hold her and make it stop. Reach out and take all that pain upon himself. He wanted her to look in his eyes, see what was hidden, turn and walk away.

The tall guard, one who Will recognized from Doctor Hammings' visit, locked the door behind her as Will watched her step into Hannibal's domain with appropriate caution. She scanned her surroundings with a quick dart of her eyes, before they came to rest back on him with joy and sorrow, patience and aggravation, familiarity and fear. 

“Will.”

His name was a breath. A fragile piece of sugar. Clear and sweet, and utterly damageable with one misplaced move, or a single drop of water. 

He watched her as she approached him with careful steps, as if trying not to scare a frightened animal. He was on the turned chair at the table, unable to stand long enough to greet her properly. Maybe it was for the best. Across from him was Hannibal's seat, for her to sit on. They wouldn't be too close, that way. It would make things easier. 

That was his plan.

“Molly,” he said, and his voice cracked like hardened clay, drying in the summer sun. 

God, if only he'd never met her... she might have been at home right now playing boardgames with her family, or watching her husband teach Walter how to throw a ball.

And he probably wouldn't be here, with his Alpha. He probably wouldn't be around at all anymore.

His greeting made her tight face break with both relief and grief, as she took a shaky breath, threw her coat on the table and moved around it with sudden, hasty steps. And as she bent over to fold her arms tightly around his shoulders, cursing away the tension against his neck, Will watched the army green coat sprawled out on Hannibal's side of the table. Choking in her embrace, and presence, he wondered if Hannibal would be able to smell the piece of clothing after she would take it away. 

He wouldn't like it. Hannibal didn't like clutter.

“God, Will,” Molly hissed against his skin, and her touch, her nearness, was enough to make his body convulse with unease. Rejection. It was like the acid that overflows your mouth right before vomiting. A warning that something had to be expelled. 

In this case, it was Molly.

“Ow,” he hissed into her hair. She was holding his body close with strong arms, and the touch pulled uncomfortably on his damaged back. But that wasn't what brought on the agony. She pulled away at his whimper, eyes wide and bright and full of pity he surely did not deserve. “Oh God, I'm sorry. I...”, she hushed, reaching to rub his arm with soothing fingers as her lips searched for words. Her eyes slid hard and pained across his cheek before she reached for his hand, and laced his fingers with hers.

God. No. This, too, was pain. Different, local. Like feeling an itch on the tip of your nose, without being able to scratch it. After a while, that pain would become torturous. He flinched, squeezed her hand in his and pulled away as gently as he could manage it. If this was what the world was going to look like, it would be better to start listening to his own nature. 

If he had done that from the very start, it would have saved them all tears, and blood, and many, many scars.

“Does this hurt you, too?”, Molly said, words soft like a whisper as her blond bangs fell into her eyes, looking down at her empty hand. She would never allow her fringe to grow past her lashes, but she had missed her last appointment. Because of him. He swallowed hard, and leaned his body further back. “It's not your fault,” he told her, his voice thick, and still so pathetically weak. “But..., it does.”  
And that was the truth, and not a lick more. Was he to tell her he couldn't stand to be near her, touch her, breathe her scent of summery flowers? 

That all he wanted was strong, and hard and winter fire.

He would be honest, he had to be, but he could be selective. Things said, could never be taken away again. Could never be unheard, could forever be a stepping stone to something as ugly as self-doubt or hatred. He never would want to gift her with that.

“I...”, Molly hesitated, startled by his words as she looked at his hand on top of his knee. He saw the wheels turning in her head, the uncertainty in her eyes, and cursed himself for not being stronger for her. 

He would be stronger.

“Let's sit,” he tried a small smile as he gestured to the seat across him. A safe table between them. She took the seat, and suddenly the sight of her blond hair and dark blue sweater painted a most surreal image amongst the glass and white walls. Seated in Hannibal's chair, at Hannibal's spot at the table, in his and Hannibal's inner sanctum.

Blasphemy.

“God, I am so happy to see you awake,” Molly said, as she rested her elbows on the table and laid her arms out before her. Hannibal's elbows never touched the tabletop. “And alive.” Tears brimmed in her eyes as she seemed to struggle with the vision of him dying on a hospital bed. She must have been lost, having to be there for him while taking care of Wally and the dogs. Carrying so many questions without answers.

“I was out of my mind when they found you like that,” she confessed, shaking her bangs out of her eyes as she placed an open hand to her pink cheek. At last, color seemed to brighten her skin, and as much as it pleased Will, he, himself, feared he was slowly turning gray, with this little space between them. 

“Was it him who did this to you?”, she asked him, tortured eyes brushing over his injuries. “The Dragon?” He breathed in deep before he nodded, reluctant to share the story and see the terror in her sky-blue eyes. “It was,” he answered with a hushed voice, as his eyes shot up to the microphone on the ceiling. Alana was listening, and he wasn't sure how much she knew, or how much she should know.

“Where is he now?”, Molly asked, her tone of voice matching his as she followed his eyes up. Will shook his head, squinting his eyes. “I can't...”, he stuttered, twisting and entangling his fingers. “He's... I believe he's dead.” His whisper was received, as her eyes widened and she leaned in closer over the table. Will kept his lips tight and his posture stiff, and she knew better than to keep asking. They had always understood each other that way.

“There was so much blood,” she steered away the conversation, grinding her teeth at the memory, as Will bit on the inside of his cheek. “I'm so sorry,” he said, between stiff jaws. “I can't imagine what that must have been like.” It must have been quite a sight to be found face down in the snow, blood oozing red over the white and melting the ice with his body heat. He must have been partly frozen, partly burned when they'd discovered him there near the porch of his house.

Molly hissed quietly between her teeth as she ran the hand that supported her cheek up and down the side of her face. “And you just kept getting worse and worse and I was just...” She sounded so tired, and Will grimaced when he watched her close her eyes against the palm of her hand.

“You sent me here,” he spoke carefully, when she remained quiet, and her round blue eyes opened at his words. She blinked, and Will clenched his jaw. If the conversation would take that turn, he would have to be strong enough, for all of them, to lay his cards on the table. He couldn't hide anymore. 

Molly looked back at him, her lips a straight line and her eyes like the bottoms of empty, plastic buckets. “You know I did a little research on Alpha's and Omega's,” she said, a small smile on her lips, almost mechanical. “I figured...”, her eyes flashed to the ceiling before she folded her hands around her elbows. Hannibal certainly never sat like that. “What options did I have?”

Their eyes met hard across the table, and Will felt his Omega pushing forth inside his mind, desperate to show where they belonged. He didn't try to lock him away but kept his beast sitting behind his ankles. 

“You saved me,” he told her as he folded his hands together on the table. It was important, so very important, that she knew. She saved his life. She made a sacrifice the size of which she had yet to comprehend, and she had saved them both.

“Yes,” Molly said, tilting her head, as the corners of her lips twitched. “By sending you into the Lion's den.” Her eyebrows arched once, as if to challenge him to contradict her, or perhaps with a hope of a confirmation that, yes, this was the Lion's den, and he wanted to get out. 

“You saved my life, Molly,” Will pressed, briefly considering using 'our', but unable to get the three letters past his lips. Ours. Him and Hannibal. Our cell, our chains, our suffering, our theatrics. That was something that still bounced like a ball between the walls of his locked mind. “I don't know what to say.” Because what was there to say, really? _Thank you?_ Thank you for saving your husband's life, who can no longer give you what you deserve or require.

Thank you for saving me, for someone else.

“You left me behind,” Molly broke through his guilt, by adding to the pile. Will blinked and squeezed his hands tightly together on the table. She sniffed, but her words were not harsh when she said, “when I asked you to stay.” 

Ah. 

He had. He had left her alone in the strange hotel room, after she had asked him to stay. He had left her all alone, without a car, to go back to the one place that was most dangerous for him to return to.

“I did,” he said, and there was nothing to add. He looked at her, and his eyes felt like those of a stranger. He was sorry. He felt the guilt. But if he would have to do it all over again...

Saying the words wouldn't change anything, and the way she held herself, still so strong, across the table, made him understand she didn't come here for an argument, or an apology. She'd come for something real.

Molly looked at him, and he knew she saw it too. The added darkness beneath the ocean eyes. A change of color and temperature, where the water beneath the boat reached deeper down. The silence hung high in the air between them, and he felt her eyes on his hair, his gray prison suit, the stitches on his cheek. 

_God._

When he'd been in the bathroom with Hannibal, he hadn't even remembered to look at himself in the mirror. Distracted by the way those golden eyes danced in the bathroom light, and how those large Alpha hands felt on his naked skin. He didn't even know if he looked the monster he felt himself to be, in this moment.

Molly folded her lips inwards with a small smile, as she placed her hands flat on the table. “It is unreal to see you like this,” she said, letting her eyes fog over as she traced the lines of his face with defeated longing. She loved him, Will knew. But she didn't recognize him anymore. 

She tried to find him, beyond the Omega skin and the Alpha scent that clung to him like smoke from the campfire. Underneath, she searched for the cardboard cutout he had always used to present himself to the world as something worthy, acceptable by society's standard. Something to hide behind as he suppressed and controlled those untasty thoughts and desires, even with her.

“You look so alive,” she said, wondrous and lost, as her blunt nails scraped absently against the table top. “The last time I saw you, the only thing that convinced me you were still alive was your heartbeat on the monitor.” She tasted bitter when she swallowed, smiling around the low frown on her forehead.  
“And that was yesterday.”

Will smiled with her at the absurd notion of this week's events, and folded his arms around the backrest. Nothing made sense anymore, and at the same time, he felt so much of his truthful self unravel, with such speed, he feared there soon would be nothing left of that ball of yarn inside his mind. Endless miles of yarn would be exposed to the daylight for the very first time. Black, frayed and sharp as fish thread.

“Is this where you are staying?”, Molly asked him as she looked around the cell. The rows of pretentious books. The closed fireplace. The hardwood floors. “It is,” Will nodded, and saw her eyes run passed the single bed against the wall. “Classy,” she remarked, pressing her lips together. “for a prison cell.” And Will smiled. She was lost, out of place inside this theater. She enjoyed home-knitted sweaters, corner seats covered in dog hair and digging her nails into the dirt while working in the garden.

She was just like him, in some ways. An endless circle of familiarity and comfort. Their relationship had been easy, that way, and he would miss that. There had been little pain, or hardship. There had been little anything, as he had retreated into the secret depth of his mind. Hannibal had never ceased to be there.

“He has very specific taste,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he ran his own eyes past the familiar walls. She stiffened in her chair, and he quickly straightened his slouching posture. Hannibal had specific taste. Hannibal was so close, he could still scent him. Hannibal was a single door away.

“Where is he?”, she asked him, and he watched her face tighten, as her leg started to tap nervously beneath the table. Had she not realized this was not just his own, ridiculously overdressed prison cell?  
His eyes flashed towards the locked door of the bathroom behind him, silent and motionless. Ominous with the promise of what it held inside.

“In there?”, she asked, visibly startled, as her cheeks paled beneath the skin. “Can he come out?” The little twitch around her eyes was covered by her rapid blinking. Glued to the bathroom door, as if believing the Alpha was about to make his dramatic entrance.

Will shook his head repeatedly, opened his hands and rushed to tell her: “No, no Molly. The door is locked. He can't get out. Don't worry.” But her eyes turned sharp at his words, as she leaned closer over the table. “I'm not worried,” she said, her gaze wandering back to the closed bathroom door. 

“I want to meet him.”


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is no clear line between body and mind, or human and animal...”, he spoke, his voice soft and fragile, but sharply lined with his pain. 
> 
> But Molly clucked her tongue at his word.
> 
> “Stop,” she said, a sharp hiss of impatience underlining her command. “Do you have sex with him?” Her voice was raised, and he could feel the desperation growing inside her as she gritted her teeth inside her mouth. “Outside of your heat?”
> 
> She was tired. He was the dead horse she was trying to ride, and her strength was giving out. 
> 
> She was exhausted. 
> 
> And he did have sex, with Hannibal, outside of his heat. Not just once. Not long ago. Not for the last time. Intimacy with his mate, with Hannibal, was what had made the world fit around him for the very first time. It had clicked like the last puzzle piece inside the dark shadow that was his soul. It was undeniably beautiful.
> 
> Would they have been in this situation, if it had been any less?

Will watched her, all determination and stubborn fire before him, and forgot the need to breathe. More than fear or outrage, he felt... absolutely annoyed with her desire to meet a notoriously dangerous cannibal murderer. One who just happened to be the Alpha to her husband's Omega. 

_Fuck_. Hannibal wanted to see her, she wanted to see him, “For God's sake Molly, why?”, he moaned, pushing his hands to his forehead as Molly folded her arms over her chest.

“He saved us, didn't he?”, she said, and Will squeezed his eyes tightly shut at the direction this conversation was taking. Please, no. “He made that phone call to our house to warn you.” Her words were enough to pull his mouth into a grimace. 

Hannibal, hero of the people. 

“Yes,” he sighed from the back of his throat. “He did.” It was true. What was also true was that he'd known The Dragon's plan to murder his family, and had been perfectly willing to sit back and let it happen if not for Will, and the danger looming over him like a swinging axe.

He didn't tell her that. He watched her wave that hero flag and let it happen, knowing her perception of Hannibal could possibly make the situation a little less _rowdy_. He wasn't one to smash his own windows.

“He is your Alpha mate,” she pushed, a little twitch around her nostrils. “I want to try and understand... this.” She emphasized by flashing her eyes through the room, and Will noticed her gaze lingering on the single bed, again. Unmade and thoroughly used. 

“I want to talk to him,” she urged, blond hair shaking against her eyelids as she clenched her hands on the tabletop. “I want to see him.” Her voice was fragile, her eyes were round and blue like a summer sky. _God_. That color. It was a reminder of the outside world, beyond these walls. A world he had never belonged in. 

“It might help me, Will.”

Her words made his belly clench with the grip of a vicious, twisting fist, and he hissed air between his teeth. “No,” he flinched, his eyes creeping to the closed door of the bathroom. “No, Molly.” Hands clenched around the backrest of his chair. “Certainly not while you are in here.”

Had she no idea of what truly lied behind that door? She knew about the his crimes, the stories, the victims and the art. That should be enough to step away from the man, before she'd learn about the beast.

Molly slid her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched his whitening hands squeezing the table. “Behind the glass,” she said to him. “Like any visitor would.” And one blink lasted a lifetime as Will swallowed a laugh in his dry throat. Like any visitor would. Molly was not any visitor. Molly had a claim on him. Molly was threat. Molly, was prey.

“I don't think it's safe,” he said, a drop of pleading mixed in with his voice. “I don't know what will happen.” Inside his head, he saw the glass wall shattering, and the wild beast clawing nails right through her chest until it could reach her still beating heart to swallow whole, pulsing within his own flesh.

_Jesus Christ._

He looked back at the bathroom door, and felt a pinch of panic between his eyes as Molly scraped the legs of her chair to the edge of the table, forcing her way closer to him. Thankfully, she did not reach out to touch. “I want to see for myself who nature has paired you with, over me,” she said, and her smile was rueful, rather than bitter. 

She wanted to understand what he wouldn't tell her. She wanted to be able to know that piece inside his mind that he wouldn't reveal. She wanted to know what her life would be like, from this day forward. And she deserved it all. “Maybe,” he said, knowing he owed her everything he could possibly give. “I'll try...” But the idea made his skin pull tight around his bones.

She would be on the other side of the wall, and Hannibal would be here. He wouldn't be cuffed. He could pace, sway closer to the glass, flash his fangs and tell her all 112 ways he could prepare and eat her child. Even with the wall in place, he could break her, send her on her way, never to be whole again.

If Will hadn't already done that damage himself.

“Thank you,” Molly said, and Will buried his head back in his hands, taking a deep breath that reached all the way to the tip of his toes. “I'll try,” he repeated, and she nodded at his defeated words. “But I don't know when.”

She traced circles on the table with her fingers as her eyes scanned past the wall filled with books, holding titles he knew she had never heard of. Molly liked detectives. “Walter is at my Mother's, and my sister is looking after the dogs,” she said, painting a clean but empty smile on her closed lips. “I'll be in Baltimore for as long as I need to be... to sort this out.” Their eyes met, and Will could feel how hard the contact pushed on his sockets. He wanted to look away, but forced himself to stay where she needed him.

She sniffled, her nose a darker shade of pink, and suddenly he watched tears welling up between her lashes. Her shoulders dropped, her hands opened. “Is it wrong that I'm starting to give up hope?”, she asked with a voice made of loose threads, startling Will with the drastic turn of the conversation. His heart pounded deep and loud inside his chest and he swallowed against the thick veins in his throat.

She knew. She looked at him, and saw him hiding, turning, breaking away from every step she took towards him. And he wished he could find that other Will. The one she was looking for. That version of himself that died the moment he opened that letter.

Now, everything inside him locked down when she reached out. He couldn't look at her, or talk to her, without feeling he was drowning. Like he didn't belong.

Molly rubbed the back of her hand across her nose and shook her head with hopeless, short jerks. “I feel like I've been dragged under into a world that is just... so far beyond me,” she sighed, and Will's lips twitched painfully over his teeth. He was frowning so low his eyes were almost closed, and behind his temples thumped a dull headache.

“It is,” he said, a tired tenderness seeping through the cracks of his voice, as he placed his index fingers at the inner corners of his eyes. “You are so... good, and right, and kind,” he choked out his admiration, and watched how the light stroked her blond hair with a soft glow. “ _You_ don't belong here, Molly.”

Her lips parted but her eyes remained open, unblinking, as she stared back at him with unseeing eyes. She was lost inside his words, as her fingers contracted against the table. “And you do?”, she breathed, blue eyes stark against her rosy skin. “Are you not all of those things, anymore?”

A twitch of a frown pulled between her eyes as she watched him, and only the slight tremor in her hands against the wood betrayed the depth of the pain he could see gnawing away inside. Her eyes lowered to her knees, before they reached back to him. “Or does this place give you the opportunity to finally shed your coat?” She watched him, exhaustion bursting through her bones, and he felt his windpipe wringing inside his body, making it painful to breathe. “Show your true colors?” 

He closed his eyes, faintly tasting blood on his tongue, before noticing he was biting down on the inside of his cheek. “It's not that simple, Molly,” he said, but in a way, it really was. Wearing a mask, day in, day out, to protect your loved ones from the horror that lived inside you, the desires, the thoughts and dreams and needs that were all unjustifiable and brutally wrong. It was exhausting. It always had been.

“I don't belong _here_ ,” he said through clenched teeth, flashing his eyes to the glass wall, behind which the guard was waiting for her. He didn't belong here. He didn't deserve this. Hannibal didn't deserve it either. 

What Hannibal deserved was a dark, dank dungeon, chains on the wall, slimy porridge for his singular meal. 

Or the chair. 

What Will deserved was an isolated life, away from the world, alone and deep in the woods, until he could no longer picture what it would feel like to harm and kill another human being, and to want it. All alone, until the desires had no meaning, and the dreams had turned to black. 

That was what he deserved.

But where he _belonged_....

“You belong with one of the inhabitants,” Molly finished his thought, and Will huffed his breath out through his nose with the uneasy shock that came with her straightforward remark. She looked at her own spread hands on the table, anxiously tapping her fingers before she looked up at him through her fringe. “Don't you?” 

Her voice was soft like a rose petal, but the pain in her eyes was framed by thorns. God, she hated this, at least as much as he did. It made her all the stronger for coming here, for doing this, for trying so hard to make him lay out what was left of their life together.

“Ever since I presented...”, he choked, blinking his eyes up at the white ceiling. But she stopped him:  
“No.” And the word felt thunderous, like a hammer to his skull. “It was always inside of you.” Her sudden grimace was sour as she lowered her head. “I have always known you had something hidden in you, that you were too afraid to show me,” she said, eyes on her fingernails as she pressed them into the palms of her hands. “I thought it was something from your past.” She cleared her throat, hidden behind her blond hair. “Abuse or trauma, maybe.” Her voice cracked on the edges, and Will fisted fingers in the back of his hair. Their vision met, briefly, and his swimming eyes were met with a smile. 

In a way, she was right.

The wolf had always been in him. The darkness had always been there, ever since he was a child. But it was Hannibal who had awoken something that he hadn't been able to put back to sleep ever since their very first meeting. In the beginning, the Alpha had felt dark and sharp, intrusive, almost unbearable to be near, until that sharpness had slashed away his own curtains. Revealing that mirroring image behind the obstruction he had so carefully spun from the thread made with fears and desires. Ones that Hannibal carried with such ease, and without shame.

Will felt the corners of his lips trembling, as he watched his bare feet curling on the floor and listened to the words that stroked kindly past his ears. “I saw it in your eyes when you didn't know I was looking.” And he smiled, lips tight against his teeth as he sniffled a breath through his runny nose. He had hid from the world and everyone in it, except in rare unguarded moments. 

Or when he was with Hannibal.

He guessed he had shown her more than he'd intended. 

Will looked at Molly's big, blue eyes as she hugged her arms around her body. “It always frightened me to know there was a layer in Will the onion that I couldn't peel,” she chuckled wetly, and wiped her nose on the edge of her sleeve as Will followed her laugh with a huff.

“I thought no one could reach that part of you,” she confessed, a tilt of her head as she met him, open and exposed. “But Hannibal could.” Her words were not at all unfair, but Will felt his dry tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. “Couldn't he?” She didn't need an answer, but she wanted one. She deserved one.

“From the beginning,” he said, straight and honest, feeling like he was carrying a bucket of boiling water on top of his head. When he unloaded, confessed, the water spilled, relieving the weight on his neck and shoulders. But the water burned his skin, as it went down. There was no winning.

But burns would heal. The bucket would remain.

Her shoulders shook against the backrest of her chair, before she pushed her hair from her face. “Please tell me where to go from here,” Molly's voice croaked a plea, and he watched her wet eyes release a drop down the side of her nose as she looked at him through bangs and tears. His mouth twisted, and he felt his own eyes filling in return. 

“I love you, Molly,” he said. It was true. It was real. It wasn't the end of it, and it wasn't enough. But it would always be true that he loved her for saving him all those times he needed to be saved.

Another tear rolled down her cheek before it was removed by the back of her hand, swiping at the evidence of her grief with a fierce brush of skin. “Are you together with him?”, she asked. “A couple?” Her teeth showed through her twitching lips. “Or... is it just biology?”

Will brushed his eyes along the ceiling as he wrung his hands together and pushed down the tightness inside his damp throat. “There is no clear line between body and mind, or human and animal...”, he spoke, his voice soft and fragile, but sharply lined with his pain. 

But Molly clucked her tongue at his word.

“Stop,” she said, a sharp hiss of impatience underlining her command. “Do you have sex with him?” Her voice was raised, and he could feel the desperation growing inside her as she gritted her teeth inside her mouth. “ _Outside_ of your heat?”

She was tired. He was the dead horse she was trying to ride, and her strength was giving out. 

She was exhausted. 

And he did have sex, with Hannibal, outside of his heat. Not just once. Not long ago. Not for the last time. Intimacy with his mate, with Hannibal, was what had made the world fit around him for the very first time. It had clicked like the last puzzle piece inside the dark shadow that was his soul. It was undeniably beautiful.

Would they have been in this situation, if it had been any less?

“Yes,” he said. He looked at her, scraping the strength to do so from the soles of his feet, as he watched the grief and relief pour out between them in equal measures. “Yes,” he repeated, feeling the road turning in a direction it should have taken long ago.

She nodded, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, as her eyes flashed down, her jaw working around nothing. “Is it...?”, she started, but her voice got caught on the sound as she grimaced, in search for questions she wanted answered. Truthfully.

He caught her silence with a plea. “I don't want to see you hurt, Molly,” he said, unable to wait for her to ask what could so easily bring her more pain than answers. She didn't deserve this. She didn't want to know.

“You should have told me,” she said, calm and reasonable and everything he had loved so easily in her. She was hurting, she felt betrayed, she was married to a man she didn't know anymore, but she didn't yell at him. She didn't think of ways to hurt him in return. She wouldn't slice a knife into his gut and twist the blade.

Molly was not theatrical.

“I wanted to try for you,” he said, pulling up his shoulders in a lost shrug as he pressed his tongue against his teeth. “I wanted to fight for us.” He choked on his words, and a single tear spilled from the brim of his eye. He owed her everything. After Hannibal had been locked away, he had been shattered to pieces, walking around, shedding and losing little bits of himself every day. She had been there to pick him up, keep him as whole as she could manage, without asking him for anything in return.

She was everything Hannibal was not. Heaven, light, bright and fair. 

But Will didn't belong in heaven.

“You wanted to see if you could settle for second best,” Molly said, a pinch of pain on the tip of her tongue as she huffed through her pink nose. “But did you ever stop to wonder if I could live like that?”  
Her voice rose with a curve around the question, and Will felt bitter bile run past the back of his teeth and onto his tongue. 

He hadn't wondered. 

He had wanted to be there for her, because she deserved that. He hadn't considered the state she would have him in, and how that would effect her life. 

Maybe he wasn't so different from his Alpha after all.

“I read the books. I did the research,” Molly said, mimicking his shrug with her own shoulders. “You are made for him, and he is made for you.” Their eyes met, and stuck, as Will shivered in his skin. “Nothing else will satisfy you.” There was pain in her smile as she blinked back the moisture in her blue eyes. “No one else will make you feel what he makes you feel.”

Will winced, and tried to swallow the taste on his tongue. “Don't do that,” he said, weak and defeated as he shook his head. “You know you've made me happy.” But the words were wrong. Past tense. Wrong. 

She had made him smile. She had made him laugh, and she had given him a life with structure and goals and a reason to get out of bed. Happy had been a foreign thing, until he had been bred on the prison table by an Alpha.

“Are you in love?”, she asked and Will coughed a sob into his hands, using them to cover his face, hiding his heated, wet cheeks. “Molly...”, he moaned into his palms, refusing to look back at her. Of all the questions she could have asked, this was the one he couldn't answer. There was so much to feel, and everything was either hysteria, or death. 

He couldn't live without him. He feared what Hannibal would do to him, and whomever Will considered dear. He wanted to cling to his mate and bury his nose beneath his chin, and just stay, forever. He could still feel the plastic tube stuffed down his throat, inserting Abigail's ear.

He wanted him, more than he could want anything in this world, but he could still feel the blood running down his chin, a bone-saw rotating on his skull.

“I don't know what I would call it,” he answered her honestly, dragging up his nose before wiping the moisture from beneath his eyes. “It's just...” His fingers dropped back to the backrest as he looked at her, and saw her silent attention. “It's everything.”

Molly inhaled deeply, held the air in her lungs and huffed it out between her lips before she placed her fingers against her temples. “Jesus, Will...”, she sighed, resting her elbows back on the table to support her head, carting fingers through her long, blond hair. “I heard you whispering his name in your sleep all these years,” she confessed, and Will felt all warmth draining from his body. “I thought they were nightmares.”

He blinked, as his breathing stuttered in his throat. He had dreamed of Hannibal, so many times. “In a way, they were,” he said, remembering how he relived seeing that face through prison bars. Or those hands, pushing that knife inside his belly, every night. Sometimes, he had dreamed of Hannibal, locked inside an Iron Maiden with only his eyes visible through the cutout. He couldn't reach him. He couldn't save him. 

Those had been the nights he would wake up screaming.

“Was he in your head, throughout our entire marriage?”, Molly asked him, hopelessness clawing at her throat as she looked at him with hands against her cheeks. He wished he could tell her to stop, because he couldn't lie. Not anymore. “I... He's in my DNA, Molly,” he uttered helplessly as he pressed a hand to his quivering throat. “I can't get him out.”

Hannibal had always been a part of him, even before they had met. Back then, he had been the hollow void inside his guts. After their time together, in those early, early days, the void had been lifted, and it had brought him both agony and fulfillment. Both had felt better than the hollowness it replaced.

“You hid him from me,” Molly accused. “You never told me what he meant to you.” And there was no denying it. He hadn't told her about him. There were no words in the world to describe what they had shared, and it became a secret he had wanted to keep. 

It was more than just shame for feeling what he felt, and wanting what he wanted. He'd felt protective of their connection, the understanding no one else could grasp.

“I wanted to protect you,” he told her, and that too, was true. If she had become curious about Hannibal and felt the need for information... “And myself.” - Then he would have followed her, unable to stop himself from reading, or writing, or driving. “I'm sorry I went the wrong way about it.” - He would have ended up in Baltimore. “I didn't know what else to do.” - Sooner than now.

“Were you ever in love with me?”, she asked, and Will's lips parted at the ice he felt spreading from his spine to his chest like a frozen embrace. He released a breath from his raw throat, and squeezed both hands around the backrest. Lost at her relentlessness to which he didn't have an answer.

“Or did you just really want to be?”, her smile never faltered, but her eyes drowned, shimmering with the reflection of the light. “Did you just really want to make it work between us...” More tears rolled down, gathering underneath her chin. “So you could try and forget about him?” 

A sob escaped him, covered by the hand that pressed against his mouth, as his own tears fell freely down his cheeks. He wished he could tell her no. He wished he could look her in the eye and say there was no truth in what she said. That Hannibal had not been a ghost in the corner, when he had held her hands at city hall, and told her 'I do'.

“Molly, listen,” he croaked through his tears, and watched her red-rimmed eyes meet his. “I have loved you from the moment I met you.” He had. She had felt like family, safe and warm, and never before in his life had he experienced that. “You are the strongest, kindest, wisest woman I have ever met.” He dragged up his running nose, before he closed his eyes. “Loving you is the easiest thing I ever allowed myself to do,” he smiled, but the grief in his face deformed the shape of his lips as he wiped at his tears that stung the cut on his cheek.

“You are the best person I have ever known.”

It was why he had been drawn to her. She was the kind, warm woman. The motherly figure he had never had. She was a patient friend that shared his passion for dogs and nature, and didn't try to dig deeper than he was comfortable with.

Her smile widened, showing her straight, white teeth. Blunt, safe, perfect. No fangs and venom behind her pink, plush lips. They had always tasted friendly, but unfamiliar. 

“Hannibal stirred something in me from the very beginning,” he said, lowering his eyelids and voice at the memory of the strange, obtrusive man in the sand-colored suit. “Agitation, at first.” Oh, how he had fumed after the psychiatrist had tried to pick at his brain, minutes after they had first shook hands. “Then, I was intrigued.”

It had started, already, during breakfast in his motel room. _'I don't find your that interesting.'_ \- had been a lie. He had wanted to poke the man where he knew it hurt. Pride, entitlement and reputation were all very important to the odd doctor. 

“Then, I was hooked,” he admitted. Conversations amongst the rows of books, peering down from the balcony at the man who so eagerly had called him a friend, who steered and supported his choices, placed him opposite his peers and employers. Hannibal had encouraged his dislike of the world, and its people, and Will had been reeled in by the game. He had driven hours in the snow, just as Hannibal would drive hours for him, and him alone. He had been addicted to Hannibal, from very early on.

Molly reached a hand to her neck. “And in love.” She added, her eyes tight with drying tears. Will couldn't stop himself from scoffing as he remembered looking at Hannibal, that time in Abigail's family home, where he'd truly seen him for the very first time.

“Mortified, actually,” he said, huffing air through his closed teeth. “I learned to see him.” Their eyes met, and Will took a deep breath before he allowed himself to dig deeper. “Hannibal, amongst many things, is manipulative, cruel and egocentric,” he told her, and watched her face tightening around her tired eyes. He couldn't make her understand, but he owed her the words that pressed on his heart.

“Trying to force down my feelings for him is the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

She closed her eyes, squeezing a single, leftover tear from between her lashes as she lowered her head, and pressed her joined hand to her lips.

“You want him,” she spoke against her knuckles, and Will could hear her breathing stop when he answered: “I'm so sorry, Molly.” He was sorry, having to hurt her like this. He was sorry, not having realized sooner. He did want Hannibal. He needed him. He craved every part, even when some of the cravings were still enlaced with fear.

“I can't live without him,” he confessed through his tight lips, and felt his words hitting home hard inside his own chest. He couldn't live without him, and he didn't want to try anymore. 

He shook his head, feeling the truth weigh him down as much as it freed him. He belonged in hell, with the Devil himself. He wanted him, and even if his own body would allow it, he would no longer choose to live without him.

“I would ask if there is no room for us anymore, but I guess there never really was,” she said, her factual tone clouded with fragility. Will had known she was bright, but she still surprised him by daring to be so open where he, himself, was closed. 

“I only ever wanted to be a good man for you,” he said, watching her as he held on tight to his chair. He had wanted to be that man, and he had tried every day to be better. It hadn't come naturally. It hadn't come easy. But for her, he had tried.

Molly nodded, a stretch around her pained lips. “But you never wanted it for yourself.” All light and joy shared between them suddenly seemed very far away.

“You're not coming home,” Molly said, her voice empty, her eyes dry. She was so tired. “No,” he said, with nothing but a whisper now as he looked at her through crusted lashes.

No. He wasn't coming home. Home was never a place for him to go. It wasn't a somewhere. It was a someone. He realized it the moment he smelled his Alpha's scent, through his Omega's nostrils, and felt himself falling into that scorching bliss.

“We'll have to make some arrangements,” Molly said, straightening herself and clearing her throat as she placed her hands flat on the table. Her eyes were bright blue. No anger, no spite, but hardened to shield the grief and pain he had seen brewing there. “Fuck,” he cursed, pressing hands over his tired eyes. She was talking divorce papers, money, rights. He wasn't going to... he didn't want any of it. She could have it all. Everything. Her, and Walter.

“There is so much I want to say to you,” he said, his voice hoarse with effort as he held his head up with support from his hands. There was so much she deserved to know, or have explained. So much love and adoration she was still owed.

“You've said it,” she said, a ripple on the blue of her eyes. “You've showed it.” The contact lasted between them, as Molly held her sleeves with her fingers. “I do not resent you,” she said, the words crooked with shivers. “I believe you gave me everything you could give.”

And he laughed, because she was wrong. He had tried so hard to be hers. But he opened that letter, knowing who was on the other side. He had left for Baltimore, knowing who he would see. He had known the dangers of Hannibal, and he'd allowed himself to be seduced. He had wanted to be.

“Don't forgive me so easily,” he said, eyes closed, mouth tight as he fought the flood of feelings behind his skin. “I'm not,” she retorted, quickly, and he opened his eyes to see her determined stare.

“Let me see him.”

Will swallowed, and folded his trembling fingers in a fist.

“I want to see him.”

She didn't plead, she demanded, and he knew she was not just going to turn her heels and leave without looking back. 

“Will, you owe me this,” she said, and if he had ever agreed wholeheartedly with something, it was that. He owed her everything, anything she would want. But this...

The idea of Hannibal looking at her with those tiger eyes, that flailed, and lashed and painted their subjects in a portrait of death, was simply unbearable. She deserved a clean break. A safe walk home. He wasn't convinced she would get that from Hannibal.

“When?”, he asked her, and watched her eyes widen briefly at his compliance. He cursed inwardly, as the gears in her head started turning. “Today,” she said, brushing hands through her hair. “I'm gonna get some air, some lunch and time for the tears to clear.”

He looked at her, and saw her pale face, her puffy eyes, her messy hair, as she wiped mascara stains from beneath her eyes. “When I come back, he's here.”

He breathed deep, wondering how quickly he could get Alana to free Hannibal from the bathroom. Maybe he would have time to talk to his Alpha, before Molly would be back. Maybe he could ask him, plead with him, not to damage her, as he did everyone else.

“Don't expect...”, he stuttered, struggling with his words as she stood up from her chair, and reached for her coat on the table. “I don't expect, Will,” she said. “I need.”

And when she had left, escorted out by the guard with a single glance over her shoulder, he had found himself by the bathroom door. Not to talk. Not to break through. 

All he could do was press his cheek against the wood, place a palm against the surface, and close his eyes as he inhaled the scent of winter fire.

_Home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, alright, hold up! 
> 
> Now, I know Hannibal and Molly did not have their talk yet, but hear me out! (Oh Please do hear me out before you start slapping me across the face! I have that type of transparant skin that makes you see a handprint for days!) 
> 
> I was writing and writing and writing and I love me so dialogue, you guys know that, and boom, a chapter without Hannibal! Oh No! I will tell you now, to make it up to you I will post 2 chapters next week (wrapped in 1 post) and it will be more than 8000 words! And plenty of Hannibal and his manly manliness just ooooozing all over the place! Hope that will make you forgive me! Love you guys so much!


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mrs. Graham,” Hannibal greeted her, as Molly stood behind the glass wall – wide eyes peeking through her bangs. The name made one eye twitch, as she cleared her throat, and swiftly placed her coat on the chair behind her. “Molly,” she corrected him, her voice quivering. She was nervous. She was wise.
> 
> The meaning was clear. She wasn't Mrs. Graham any longer. And where a correction would usually not go over well with the dignified Alpha, Will was certain he wouldn't mind it this time. “Hello, Molly,” Hannibal said, kindness with an undefinable edge as he walked closer to the glass. Guards' eyes squinted with suspicion, but Hannibal paid them no heed as he came to stand before the shorter, blond woman, in touching range if not for the transparent wall.
> 
> “Hello, Doctor Lecter,” she returned his greeting with a hesitant nod, as she held both elbows in her hand before her. She looked small and weak in his presence. She was. But she didn't break eye contact as she bravely stepped forward, and closed the distance between them to one that was appropriate for conversation.

_Click_

Will could feel the lock mechanism jump against his cheek with a thud from the inside of the wooden door. His eyes sprung open at the movement, and he whipped his head around to look over his shoulder at the wall of glass behind him. There was no one to be seen. 

But that didn't mean he was alone.

Alana had heard every word, and had witnessed every intimate exchange between Will and his wife. She had seen Molly come in, watched her cry, heard her brave questions and demands, and observed her departure. 

She knew it was safe for Hannibal to come back out. 

Will pressed the handle down, and felt the door comply beneath his pushing hand. Before both his feet had even crossed the threshold, an insistent scent, familiar yet stinging, rose from the secluded space and surrounded him fully. Alpha. Territorial, threatening, tenacious. 

Will stepped into the harshly lit room, and closed the door firmly behind him.

And there he was. His mate was at the furthest wall, right beside the glass shower, and had his back pressed against the tiles with arms stiff beside his body. His ankles, Will confoundedly noticed, were cuffed together with big, metal shackles that linked his feet with a thick chain, resting on the bathroom floor.

Restrained, and ravening at the sight of his Omega.

Will looked at his Alpha, bound and undignified, and watched the predator's eyes gleam fiercely with possessiveness, made from anger and desire. The sight of Will seemed to bring him torment as well as trembling alleviation, hidden by a feeble attempt to keep himself proud and steady against the wall. But the buzzing beneath the Alpha's skin, a mix of need and vulnerability as thick as blood, was unmistakably similar to the quiver Will carried beneath his own flesh. 

And Will wasn't playing games. 

Unlike his Alpha, he had no need to hide his humanity. With targeted, hurried steps, he crossed the cream-tiled room and threw his weight fully against his mate's strong frame, pressing them both against the back wall with a stumble of their bodies. The Alpha caught him effortlessly, even in chains, and Will heard his own breath stuttering violently as he nuzzled blindly and helplessly against the warm skin of Hannibal's throat. 

Two arms crept beneath Will's armpits to hoist him up, sparing his wounded back but straightening his spine until Hannibal's searching lips pressed warmly to Will's mouth. _God._

The moan released by both was born from a desperate urgency, as the Omega pushed himself fully into the beautiful contact of their open mouths. It was needful and soothing alike, as they searched for closeness by tasting, and feeling, and pressing the length of their bodies together so forcefully, Hannibal's head thudded against the back wall.

Wet lips danced in a slick slide, open and pliant, as Hannibal licked beyond the seam and searched for Will's short, pointed fangs with his soft tongue. _Fuck._

The Omega shivered an abandoned whimper when Hannibal slid his tongue over the sharp teeth inside his mouth, purposely slicing himself open on the razor-sharp fangs and pulsing thick, warm blood into their joined mouths, as two large hands came to cup Will's face with a strong, possessive grip.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._ A wanton, shared moan spilled between their lips, along with the flowing blood. The taste of Hannibal's essence, his overflowing mouth, the scent of arousal, it was enough to make Will buckle against his Alpha's body as he lost the tight, angry suffering within him, and surrendered to the maddening, soul-defying pleasure of belonging. 

“Mhhhhh,” he moaned openly against Hannibal's lips, allowing the hot, coppery blood to pour inside his mouth and swaying deliriously against the solid warmth of his mate's hot, strong frame. They shared the flow, the heat, the feral need, as Will closed his starving lips around the slick muscle, surrendering to the sensation that was pure and only Hannibal's mortality. 

“Did you hear us?”, Will whimpered when the Alpha pulled from his mouth to pepper violent kisses along the side of his face. Hannibal groaned with a voice unhumanly raw, and when he drew back to look at him, Will saw his mate's lips smeared red with his own blood. _Oh._

He looked wild, feral, dangerous, and the sight made Will's insides throb with torturous craving.

“I did,” Hannibal said between stained teeth, but he avoided Will's searching eyes in favor of his lips. Will felt and tasted the red around his mouth, and pictured the tragedy painted on his own face in this moment. Tear streaks on his face, eyes pink and swollen, lips red with blood and kisses, ruffled hair from both worried and heated fingers. 

Cheeks flushed with his arousal.

“Everything?”, he pressed, frustrated by the Alpha's avoiding, heated eyes that he chased with his own persistent stare, and placed a stern finger beneath Hannibal's turning chin. Those eyes flashed like lightning as Hannibal looked at him down his perfectly straight nose, hissing at him between bloody teeth. “Quite clearly,” he declared, before gripping Will's demanding hand and ripping it away from his jaw. 

Hannibal growled into another sharp kiss made from teeth and blood and a bruising bite on Will's bottom lip, as the Omega's knees buckled with heated tension. Sharp pain and sharper lust.

“I could never love another,” Hannibal snarled against Will's mouth, brushing fangs dangerously near the skin. “I never have.” It was an accusation, brought on by having heard Will's proclaimed affection for his wife in a way he had never done for his mate, and Will moaned when pointed teeth brushed along his chin, down his throat. 

A reminder how easy it would be, to be made just his. 

Hannibal was jealous. Hannibal was hurt by his words to Molly. He was angered by his love for her. But it was all wrong. He had it all wrong. “You loved your sister,” Will bit back as his lashes fluttered, feeling razor sharp teeth grazing along his thumping artery. The mention of Misha caused Hannibal to growl furiously against his skin, and for a moment, Will regretted those words with teeth so near his vital veins. 

Hannibal had loved her, like a brother loves a sister. And Will loved Molly. He always would. The nature of this love, however, in comparison to what he shared with Hannibal...

_God._

_No, not now._

There were still words he couldn't grasp, thoughts he couldn't process, and fears he hadn't conquered. This was not the moment to reach inside and see if he could find his heart inside his brain.

“I listened to you speak.” Hannibal bit at him through sharp teeth. “I heard what you said.” Fangs traced Will's jawline. “I heard what you said about me.” A strong nose bumped under his chin. “And I fantasized about punishing you.” Hannibal's lips nipped below the Omega's ear and Will gasped a breathless chuckle at the threat, combined with the playful nibbles on his skin. 

_Punishing._

His lion was deadlier than he appeared, but it was hard to imagine it when he was nuzzling Will like a love-stricken cub. “And rather than a good spanking, I presume these fantasies all resulted in my gruesome death,” Will hummed against his Alpha's cheek, a pleasant rumble purring from his chest as the Alpha traced his cheekbone with his sticky lips.

But despite his envy, Hannibal had not been too green around the eyes to overlook the underlining message he had taken from their conversation; the reason why he was clinging to Will as if he was starving without him. “You chose me,” Hannibal spoke against his nose, and Will felt his lungs contract inside his chest. 

_Oh._

His body went rigid as he placed his hands on the Alpha's chest, struggling against the overpowering presence that suddenly seemed to double in size. “I...,” he stammered. He had. He hadn't. It hadn't been about that. It wasn't about choosing anybody, but about acknowledging he couldn't continue with Molly. What he would choose for himself now, was not unconditional. 

And yet, inside that fear and need for his own choices, there was really only one thing that remained, blinking brightly on his radar. He was not delusional enough to not understand what it was he wanted, in spite of everything.

“I want you,” he whispered brokenly, eyes big and wide like the ocean as he looked at his mate, and watched the Alpha melt from sparkling gold to pouring honey, with a low, animated growl. Lips met, again, and tasted of the blood that caked to them both, as the fresh cut still pooled in the dip of Hannibal's tongue. The kiss showed their open and uncontrolled hunger for intimacy, more and closer, as heat stirred painfully tight behind Will's pelvis bone, up to the point he had to force himself not to grind his hips into his mate.

Hannibal's mouth followed after him when Will balanced himself with a step back, and the clanking of metal sounded from the Alpha's feet. _Fuck._ Will looked down at the chains that bound Hannibal's legs, and he had to bite his lip at the sudden vision of his wild Alpha, suit around his calves, ankles locked in chains, and arched against the wall in pleasure as Will dropped to his knees before him to take him inside his mouth. 

_Oh, God._

Will shuddered at the thought. Hannibal wouldn't be able to just walk away, or spread his legs further to relieve the tension. He would only be able to clutch Will's shoulders for balance, and endure what the Omega decided to give him.

“Jesus,” he cursed, as his heated gaze slid up to Hannibal's flushed appearance. “These chains.” Hannibal smiled his red teeth bare as he shifted his foot, making the metal clang brightly against the tiled floor. “You _like_ me helpless,” he accused his Omega daringly, but Will only snorted at the mindless words. “You're not helpless,” he bit back, as his hand squeezed the strong flesh of his Alpha's thigh. “I know you better.”

Hannibal smirked at him before he tucked two fingers behind the front of his mate's suit, and pressed Will's good cheek to his own without any other purpose than to nuzzle against his warmth. The Omega allowed it with a purr from his chest, as he closed his eyes into the contact. “I just thought they would chain you to _something_ , rather than yourself,” he murmured lazily against Hannibal's ear as he wriggled himself deeper against the Alpha's neck. Hannibal huffed against his skin, letting his fingers play through Will's curls. “Alana wouldn't want to risk a damaged pipe, I'm sure,” he answered, and Will smiled into the safe cocoon of their heat as he pictured an enraged Alpha, standing up to his waist in water as the bathroom flooded from the broken pipe beneath the sink.

A minute passed, and another, where Will allowed himself to be there, and nowhere else. Just this. Just them. Just his nose in the hollow of his Alpha's throat, and the feel of his pumping artery against his cheek. He wished he could allow it to last longer. 

Forever.

“Molly's coming back,” he said, unnecessarily, knowing Hannibal was already well informed of what was to come next. The Omega pushed himself back from their embrace, and winced as the separation felt came over him like stepping out of a warm, soft bed – right onto sharp, frozen rocks. 

“And we will talk,” Hannibal confirmed, unfazed, and watched his Omega with clear, sober eyes that made every doubt and fear inside Will's mind swim around in unidentifiable colors. He had tried to stop it, but there was no stopping it now. “ _We_ will talk,” Hannibal repeated, as he slid his hands down Will's arms. “ _Me_ and her.”

The message was clear, and Will felt his jaw tightening as a nervous vine curled up from his legs to the inside of his throat. They would meet. Eye to eye. They both wanted this, and it was beyond any power he had now. He took a breath, and swallowed down every image he carried inside of him, where his mate would tear through her skin, her mind, her very soul, until nothing remained but complete, utter devastation. 

“Do I need to beg?”, Will asked his mate, his voice rough from the blood that lingered on his tongue. “Because I will.” Their eyes met, and Hannibal looked back at him with earthly eyes as he released the grip he had on Will's twitching wrists. “What would you beg me for, Will?”, he asked, his eyes shielded and flat as coins on eyelids.

“Your promise to treat her with respect,” Will swallowed the many other words he wished to use. Not to kill, to hurt, to bite, to threaten, to ruin, to scare... Please, please, please. But he only allowed his eyes to scream as he looked at his mate and watched him tilt his chin upwards like an offended cat. “Do you not know me?”, Hannibal asked him, and Will felt his gut tighten around prickling edges as he reached out and clenched fingers into Hannibal's suit.

Sometimes, no, he didn't know him. 

Even now, Hannibal's remark could be taken two ways:   
Do you not know me well enough to know I will?   
Do you not know me well enough to know I won't?

And Will had no idea which way to go. 

No, he did not always know Hannibal. That was the root of all their problems.

“Will,” Alana's voice rang through the room, calling out for him from behind the glass. The moment shattered, and Will released Hannibal's clothes as he stepped back, and watched his Alpha staring at him, with those eyes made of coins. 

There was no time left.

**

She was here. 

Will seated himself on the bed with pillows against his wounded back, propped up against the wall. It was his only choice. He'd refused to lie down, and the chairs were starting to hurt his shoulders where he rested his weight against the backrest. But he had to be here. 

He had to be.

Hannibal was released back into the cell, but remained chained by the ankles; His movements were limited and his steps were small, accompanied by the roll of heavy metal against wood. Oh, and how Hannibal resented it, Will had no doubt. The indignity must have been horrifying to his proud Alpha, but Will was silently grateful for the extra limitation. 

In this moment, he only cared about one thing, and that was that they would all come out the other end of this, body parts still attached, and blood pumping _beneath_ the skin.

No one attacked, no one shot, no one psychologically damaged for a lifetime.

Two security guards stepped through the door, preceding Molly, one positioning himself swiftly on the far left side of the glass wall, while the other took his place on the right. 

And there she was. 

Her feet dragged just a little as she followed the guards inside, grasping her coat tightly to her front. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes were puffy and pink, still, and her long, blond hair lay flat against her head. But her back was straight, her chin pointed forward, and Will felt a flutter of pride through his concern, watching her come here to face the beast with such honorable strength, and calm.

The round, blue gaze wasted no time finding Hannibal through the glass, standing tall and straight and perfectly steady in the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back. Her eyes flashed only briefly to Will, before they were unavoidably drawn back to the statued Alpha, radiating strength even in chains, a prison jumpsuit, and white, cotton loafers. 

He was caged, but never less than majestic. Wild, magnificent savagery, hidden inside human skin. 

Otherworldly, human skin.

Will wondered what she saw when she looked at him, standing bound and proud in the middle of the curious cell. The beautiful man, the beautiful beast, or the hideous monster most people considered him to be.

She walked to the glass as the guards stood straight with attention, hands tense on their guns. _Oh._ Will watched them, and whatever fear he had previously felt for Molly, quickly turned to unease over pushing concern for her life above all else. It was clearly Hannibal's safety that was threatened most of all. _No. Please, no._

“Mrs. Graham,” Hannibal greeted her, as Molly stood behind the glass wall – wide eyes peeking through her bangs. The name made one eye twitch, as she cleared her throat, and swiftly placed her coat on the chair behind her. “Molly,” she corrected him, her voice quivering. She was nervous. She was wise.

The meaning was clear. She wasn't Mrs. Graham any longer. And where a correction would usually not go over well with the dignified Alpha, Will was certain he wouldn't mind it this time. “Hello, Molly,” Hannibal said, kindness with an undefinable edge as he walked closer to the glass. Guards' eyes squinted with suspicion, but Hannibal paid them no heed as he came to stand before the shorter, blond woman, in touching range if not for the transparent wall.

“Hello, Doctor Lecter,” she returned his greeting with a hesitant nod, as she held both elbows in her hand before her. She looked small and weak in his presence. She was. But she didn't break eye contact as she bravely stepped forward, and closed the distance between them to one that was appropriate for conversation.

Her eyes darted across his face, the scars, the eyes of blood and honey and the razor sharp bones beneath sun-deprived skin, and he allowed the open scrutiny without a word. “I recognize you from the papers,” she said, and Will's lips twitched with heavy weight. 

Those papers had been on their kitchen table, screaming Hannibal's name in the headlines. She would make a point of reading them out, knowing his connection to Will's past, but unaware just how deep it ran. She hadn't seen his hands balling to fists underneath the table top as she spoke out his name. She hadn't seen the agony in his eyes, whenever he looked at the gray paper, and saw the familiar face that still haunted his days and nights. 

Hannibal's lips stretched open over his teeth, and Will's eyes watched with horror how the dark blood still clung to his mate's mouth, staining his gleaming fangs. _God._ He wiped a frantic hand against his own cheek and lips to discover he, too, was covered in the dried red of his mate. 

Hannibal must have known.

Red shimmered merrily behind the Alpha's lips, like a tiger's fangs after ripping apart his prey. A threat and a marking. A claim. Molly didn't know the source of the blood on his teeth, but with those stains on the predator's mouth, and the skin of Will's own exposed throat, she would probably think it was his.

A bite.

_Jesus, Hannibal._

The Omega squeezed his thighs together, trying to focus on how cruel it was to paint this illusion, instead of how strongly his body responded to the thought of _actually_ being claimed, and how his throat throbbed with the idea of a bite.

“I'm sure uncoated groundwood paper doesn't do much for my appearance,” Hannibal spoke pleasantly, his lips closing on a small smile as he watched her with that steady, x-ray vision. Blood in his mouth, blood in his eyes. But Molly wasn't stepping back. She held her head high, even when her fingers trembled. She was being tested, but where some feared to face the horror that was Hannibal Lecter, she didn't allow herself to forget why she was here. “I would say, neither do prison bars,” she said instead, as her eyes ran past the wall of glass, “but you don't seem to have any.”

Hannibal hummed in agreement, as he stretched his linked hands behind his back. “Indeed,” he said, following her gaze around the thick, spotless glass. “As you can see, I live a most transparent life.” He returned his vision back to her, as his lips curled around the edges. “But is transparency not just another illusion?” 

Will heard Molly's breath stuttering at the stroke of words that brought goosebumps to his skin, but Hannibal paid no mind to the result of his words. “If you had wanted to find better quality pictures, you could have found them in the _many_ essays and reports I've published,” he continued conversationally, as Will fought the urge to roll his eyes at the man's accomplished air. _For God's sake._

“I've read some of them,” Molly admitted, her jaw tight as Hannibal smiled politely around his blood-stained teeth. “Of course you did,” he said. “My guess would be that you first laid eyes on those this very week,” his words were spoken matter-of-factly, and not without pleasure as he watched Molly openly swallow her nerves. Hannibal understood people, and he was eager to point it out, whenever beneficial. Leaving anyone naked, vulnerable and frightened in his presence.

He understood Molly, without ever meeting her. “I've done some research, yes,” she admitted bravely, and Will closed his eyes briefly at the painful knowledge. Molly would have searched for whatever information she could get on Doctor Hannibal Lecter, the moment she knew Will had presented for him. _God._ She would have read his work, the articles by or on him, the police reports, the court cases. Mason Verger, Miriam Lass, Abigail... she would have read it all.

“And do you not know me from the magazines and the television specials?”, Hannibal continued, a questionable shake of his head as his eyes smiled friendly, over thick walls of calculation. “There are many, I've been told.” There _were_ many. So, so many. Every murder special, every real-life horror program, he was there. Will had seen them. None of them had captured the truth. None of them had been horrifying enough.

“I don't watch television,” Molly said, and Will smiled against his pulled-up knees. She never did. He had had his own television set in the back room, by the fireplace. He would let Wally watch cartoons sometimes, but mostly it was just background noise for when she was away. Distant chatter to drown out the incessant shrieking inside his head.

When Hannibal would come on the news, or the Discovery Channel, he would always get up to find the remote, but once he'd have it in his hand, he could never bring himself to press the button.

Will looked at his mate and saw the raw power that oozed from every pore. He was the dead tree in the wind, still and calm, no muscle that moved involuntarily, no twitching fingers or toes. He was lean, lithe yet strong, and made from pure gold that hid the exquisite swirls of darkness beneath. 

Savage.

It was torture, common-sense battling instincts, but Will wanted nothing more than to unbutton that jumpsuit and slide his hands inside to feel the heat of blood beneath the flesh. To smell the winter fire hidden beneath the fabric, and to stroke fingers along the smooth stretch of skin over the sharp angles of the bones. He wanted to yank that silver hair back between his fingers and watch the control drip away from that perfect, unrivaled power. Tame the wild beast, like only he ever could.

“Or read those glossy magazines,” Hannibal completed her statement, a smug gleam over his eyes. “That doesn't surprise me. You are an intelligent woman.” Molly swallowed hard as she tried to blink away the flush that crept up her neck, and Will wiped his hands over his own eyes. _Christ. Focus._ “- But not educated,” Hannibal pinched, wringing the compliment into something wry with a small smile on his lips. Trying her, Will knew. Her temper, her pride, her determination. Weighing her worth. Will saw through him.

Molly's lips tightened, as she hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans. “For some, life is not about education,” she said, a squint to her eyes as shook her bangs from her forehead. “It is about working hard and getting by.” And she had always done that. She worked hard for her family. She had gotten by, without ever questioning if she was happy, or if she needed something more to please her. Life was simple, hard but beautiful. Life was survival. 

Hannibal and her couldn't be further apart.

“That's a choice,” the Alpha said, a challenging flame lighting his eyes as he licked his tongue over his teeth. “A state of mind for those who cannot see beauty in what are, presumably, flaws.” The lion eyes narrowed, sharp with the search for vulnerability. “Or sins.”

_Fuck._ Hannibal's tongue curled around the words, his eyes shining as if catching moonlight, and Will felt pleasure thick as oil running down his spine. He cursed himself for experiencing such desire at the sight of his prancing wolf, right in front of her. His knees touched, and his fingers dug into the flesh of his thighs as he willed himself to look away, and focus on the ceiling instead.

“Then I'm happy with my choice,” Molly responded, her voice squeezed out of her throat as she held her chin up, and dared to meet the dancing eyes of the man before her. She was strong, and brave and foolishly intrigued, like everyone who met the charming devil.

“As you should be,” Hannibal agreed wholeheartedly, as he placed an elbow in his hand and rubbed his fingers in contemplation. “Such a mindset requires a certain... creativity.” There was no change in his expression, but Will watched Molly's spine straighten as she stared back at the Alpha while he placed a finger to his lips. “And, of course, forgiveness.”

Molly's lips pressed together, and a low frown deepened her forehead. She was already lured in by the bait. “Forgiveness?”, she asked, as her blue eyes blinked with confusion. “Of whom?” Will watched her hold on to the line Hannibal was throwing her, ready to be reeled in by the hunter, or the fisherman. Hannibal could do both, equally well. 

“Yourself,” the Alpha answered her weightlessly, and Will watched Molly's pink lips parting. “You must be very skilled at that,” She was quick on her feet, and Will felt his shoulders tense at her witty remark. _Please,_ he begged her inside his head, _don't get comfortable. Don't play the game._

“And you?”, Hannibal asked her, fingers against his own throat as he tilted his head and bore through her mind with his sparkling, spearing gaze. “Have you forgiven yourself for the death of your first husband?”

Will's heart bounced against his ribs, as he jerked upwards and gasped at the cruel pain that screamed over his back. His eyes shot to Molly, and watched her tense. Shocked, but controlled. “He died of cancer,” she said, her lips tight around the word that made her shiver inside her skin. “That doesn't matter,” Hannibal retorted, running his eyes up her face with dangerous precision. “You feel guilt for every moment you failed to save him.”

Molly's lips opened, and her color dimmed as blood pumped to her heavy feet. Will didn't have to be her, to understand what it felt like to stand in her place behind the glass. Hannibal's hands curled together behind his back again, as he gently swayed his weight on his knees, full control of his stability. “And for not bringing him to the doctor at the first signs of his decreasing health.”

Molly's eyes lowered briefly to her shoes as she licked over her dry lips, and Will felt his own nostrils twitching. She had wanted to speak to Hannibal. She had wanted to see him. He wondered, if she had known this, if she had still made that choice for herself. He also wondered what she'd expected to receive in the first place. 

Hannibal stretched his neck. “You were a grieving window,” he continued. “Have you forgiven yourself for not being able to be a good, caring mother for your child, at times?”

_No._ Will froze, and felt his stitches pull tight. _Hannibal._ But Molly huffed at the cruel words, a pained smile on her tired face, as she wrung her hands together and flashed her eyes up to the ceiling. “It took a while,” she said, not denying the accusation. Hannibal looked into her, saw the darkness and the shame, and wrung it out through her heart, just where it hurt the most. His Alpha was gifted, that way.

Molly met the open, golden stare with rueful confidence. “But I think I have.” Hannibal nodded pleasantly, and Will felt his face twitch with a sudden wave of confusion. The game he thought was played to damage her, suddenly appeared...something else entirely. Instead of stabbing her where she was weak, he exposed her, where she was strong. 

His Alpha's eyes brushed over him as he turned his head to the side, and touched the Omega with a fire that made the air feel thick and hot against Will's skin. “Was it Will who saved you?”, Hannibal asked, eyes on his mate, but directing the question at Molly, who stood behind the glass and watched the atmosphere burn heavily with their connection.

“No,” Molly swallowed, and her answer was the right one. He hadn't saved her. He hadn't helped her heal. She had fought for herself, Walter and him, when she had been in need of warmth, love and understanding. But he had been trapped in the spider's web, and everything left to give, after Hannibal's arrest, was left between the sticky threads of a monster that demanded feeding.

“We both have always been responsible for our own struggles,” Molly said, her eyes touching his as a smile trembled around her lips. “And our own mending.” Will hadn't forced her back onto her feet, and she hadn't been able to break his desires, or the painful longing that was carved so deeply into his haunted heart.

He hadn't saved her. She hadn't saved him.

It had never been about that.

“Very admirable,” Hannibal spoke formally as he pulled his honey gaze away from Will, whose fingers thirsted helplessly for the touch of his Alpha's skin. It was outrageously inappropriate, but there was no denying it. He was too beautiful, too far way. _Fuck._ Molly could not have missed the way their eyes crossed, burned, and throughly consumed as eyelids grew heavy.

“We have not been each other's rebounds,” Molly interjected, bringing Hannibal's attention back to her, as her brow lowered and she wondered, no doubt, what corner she was being driven into. “Not at all,” Hannibal said, his expression unreadably comfortable. “The point I'm making is that you are a strong woman.”

Molly blinked, Will bit the inside of his lip and Hannibal regarded him with a quick flash of his eyes.  
“It's no surprise,” he almost smiled. “Will would not desire anything less.” And the pain, perfectly painted over by his stoic voice, was undetectable, to anyone but Will Graham. Molly's eyes narrowed with confusion, as she tightened her arms around her ribs. Hugging herself, in search for comfort and assurance. Someone on her side of the glass.

“What does that mean?”, she inquired, suspicion a red hot underline beneath her question, but her voice remained soft, civilized, as she kept her eyes steadily on the Alpha before her. Molly learned quickly, and Will could see his mate flex his shoulders with appreciation. Fire and control, it was a most valued combination.

“You are perfectly capable of going after what you want,” he told Molly, and allowed his vision to stroke over Will's straight posture, sitting up with full attention. “More importantly, you are perfectly capable of saving _yourself_ ,” he finished the thought, and Will ground his teeth inside his mouth, watching Molly tilt her head with a barely concealed fire. “Yes.” She agreed between her teeth. “ _And_ my family,” Her twitching eyes flashed over Hannibal's features as she hooked her fingers into the sleeves of her sweater. 

Hannibal's lips stretched, following her wordplay with the reins tightly in his hands. “And your child, certainly,” he half-agreed, bending the road as he flashed his golden eyes like a rain of sharp hail. Her face tightened, her lower jaw pushed forward and her eyes lowered. Open, but unseeing. “Yes,” she said. “Me and Walter.”

She had always been able to take care of Wally, and herself. Will had not fulfilled that role inside their home. She hadn't been allowed inside the walls of his skull, and he hadn't reached out for hers in return. Will had not been the key to their happiness. He had not been the proper shape to fill the void left behind.

“Will was never yours to save, Molly,” Hannibal told her, eyes and voice deep but clean, and Molly brought her gaze bravely back to the Alpha. And where Will expected her to quit, to walk and to never look back, her lips pushed into a small, rueful smile that Hannibal copied almost simultaneously. She was calm, and her eyes reached down deep into her vulnerability, as Will's breath came out in short, choked bursts.

She stayed. Tired and afraid. But her eyes on Hannibal were not those of a woman who could only see a monster. “I wanted to meet you,” Molly told him, exhaustedly kind as she pressed one hand against the glass. _Click_ , said the two guns, followed by the low command of, “Step away from the glass, Ma'am.” Her hand retracted, and Will breathed his relief with a sigh so deep it pulled at the underside of his lungs. 

Will knew there was nothing to win for her there, but he knew she didn't come here to walk out, defeated. She was a rare kind of woman. One that counted the greater good over her own needs. How else could she have loved him?

“You wanted to understand,” Hannibal said, factually, and licked his lips with a sharp glint in his eyes as he stretched out his body with a flex of muscles. “You needed to see what he's left you for.” Will shivered, as he watched his mate radiating against the pale wall that framed his silhouette. His mask of humanity was not completely in place, and it showed the beautiful power that roared beneath. Lion eyes touched him for a brief moment, and Will suppressed a whimper behind his teeth, as the Alpha turned back to Molly. “You wanted to see what he gets here, that he doesn't get at home.”

_No. Don't._ Will pushed nails into his knees as Molly rose a brow behind the wall. She stared back at Hannibal, polite manners etched onto his face, before she met Will's flustered expression, made from both lust and shame. _Fuck._ Yes, she had given it a thought, he could tell. There was pain and shameful curiosity hidden in the depths of her sky blue irises. 

She had most likely wondered about his sexual preferences, then and now. She might have envisioned it inside her head; how it happened, what it did to him, how much intimacy it truly inhabited. 

_No. No. Fuck no._

They had never been a very 'sexual' couple, Molly and him, let alone adventurous enough to try a hand at _variation_. She must have wondered, if he had needed more, at times, from her. And truthfully, he really, really hadn't. 

“Nothing that vulgar, Doctor Lecter,” Molly told him, twitching her lips around many emotions as she eyed the Alpha with mild... disapproval. A mother at heart. “No?”, Hannibal questioned, pleasantly skeptical. “Am I not giving voice to your thoughts?” The Alpha smiled when Molly rubbed a hand along her heated cheek, and he pressed his hands together before him, pushing two fingertips beneath his chin. “Forgive me, I meant no disrespect,” he charmed, inhumanly appealing. “I simply wished to expose and satisfy your need for answers,” he spoke patiently. 

_“Lay it all out on the table, so to speak.”_

Will watched those lips, filled with blood and shimmering in the light from a lick of Hannibal's pink tongue. Blood deepened the golden eyes to a thick Scotch, and the Omega squirmed against the mattress when the Alpha flashed a ray of heat in his direction. “I've been told quite recently that I'm rather skilled at that.”

Oh, _fuck him._ Will was already such a mess without needing the image of his own hands gripping the edge of the table, as Hannibal took everything he offered, and turned it into flaming paradise. _Shit._ Their first fuck had been a memorable one.

“There's a reason I don't voice those thoughts,” Molly said, unaware of the 'hats off' Hannibal was sending out to the deceased and thoroughly used dining table that now lived a broken life at the dump, as she brushed her bangs from her damp forehead. “Curiosity was never the key to a good night's sleep.” She was wise, even when she was afraid, and beautifully so. 

She did not stand a chance against the Alpha, but she sure beat the majority. Hannibal blinked like that content cat in the summer sun. “Ignorance is surely bliss, if only for the tortured mind,” he spoke, approvingly as he twisted flat hands against each other. “It does you honor.”

Hannibal had poked her with that army of stings, sharp as bees, hidden behind the golden honey. She had flinched, but not stepped back, and Will knew Hannibal admired her bravery, and her desire to stay and see through what she came here to do.

Closure, lighter baggage to fly home, a goodbye.

Molly rolled on the balls of her feet, as she pressed fingers into the narrow pockets of her jeans. She looked down, hiding her face behind her hair before she shook it back and looked into the sharp angles of Hannibal's otherworldly features. “I wanted to look you in the eye and thank you for that phone call,” she said, bursting out the words, thoroughly rehearsed inside her mind, and Will rubbed a hand to his face. He knew of her desire to express gratitude, and he would never tell her she was expressing it to a man who had been more than willing to feed her and her child to a mythical beast, had Will still been curled up in his arms. 

“Then, here's your chance,” Hannibal replied, patiently pleasant, as he met her nervous eyes with an open, congenial gaze. Will bit down his teeth at the carefree reply, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. _Absolute bastard._

Molly sucked her lip against her teeth, a mixture of stunned amusement and bewilderment as she rose a blond eyebrow under her hair. Hannibal was playing games, always, but rarely was the challenge so transparent, or, in his way, playful. “Thank you,” Molly humored him, with a squint of her blue eyes. “You quite possibly saved my life.” Hannibal hummed his agreement. “Quite possibly,” he said, and Will watched Molly tilt her head, as she supported her hands on her hips. “Even though I'm certain that was not the purpose of your call.” 

And Will's heart beat wild and fast when he watched her challenge the man behind the glass, the shark in a tank. By no means toothless, but kept far enough from the audience to ever so much as make a dent. For now. “No,” Hannibal agreed, his expression clean from weakness or spite as he flashed his eyes back to the Omega, who folded his arms around his knees and squeezed, desperate for this to be over. 

Will's eyes were big and pleading when they met, and his Alpha smiled tenderly at his wounded mate. “It is only ever about Will.”

Molly swallowed, in search for her voice as she watched open adoration color up the face of the love-stricken Alpha, a new experience that shook her, and made her lose her train of thought. She had come here for this as well, Will knew, as he pushed down the clawing whine inside his throat and fought the rushing need within his belly. She had wanted to see, and understand, why it was Hannibal he wanted, and if Hannibal rewarded his affection with more than domination. 

In truth, they were both enslaved, equally so, but where Hannibal had always openly embraced his own desires, Will had struggled all the way through.

He still did.

“D-do you...?”, Molly stuttered, her gaze on Will before brought back to Hannibal, who tore his eyes away from his Omega with such effort, Will almost expected to see tears of blood running down his cheeks. He silently begged her not to find a word for what she couldn't suppress curiosity for. Need him? Hurt him? Want him? Love him? 

Hannibal didn't let her struggle hang in the air, as he erased the wonder with an all-saying; “Will is my mate, Molly.” The pleasant lights had dimmed inside the Alpha's skull as he looked at her, leaving no room to doubt he was truthful, and violently passionate. “He's everything.”

_God._ Will lowered his eyes to his hands and willed himself not to look at her, as he fought against the sudden rush of tears he felt pressing up his nose. _No. Stop._ God, he felt weak. He was everything to Hannibal. And Hannibal was everything in return. If only they could narrow it down to bliss and beauty and paradise.

“Do you think you can protect him?”, Molly asked, and Will winced when he heard the hoarse voice ring through the room with the cliché. “In whatever life you see for the both of you, from this point on?” She was honest. She knew there were many ways they could choose to live their lives from this point on. He was proud of her. He had never had to explain how their world would not be limited by the glass walls of a prison cell. She was smart enough to know that their life expended far beyond it, and rarely was it safe. 

She worried. Molly didn't wish him harm, he knew. She was protective of everything right in the world, and oddly enough, he seemed rooted too deeply inside her mind to re-pot him to lesser grounds. 

Hannibal stood still and strong, as the Omega peeked at him from beneath his lashes. “I'm not one to make concessions, Molly,” he said, and a dangerous stream shimmered beneath the pointed tone. “Whatever the means.”

Molly pressed her lips together, her hands finding their way into her back pockets. “To have him with you?”, she asked, her upper lip twitching. “To have him survive,” Hannibal replied seamlessly, as Will grabbed his ankles with tight fingers. 

“Including murder?”, she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as the words slid past her teeth. Hannibal smiled, his jumpsuit clinging to his strong frame. “Yes,” he said simply. “Including yours, your child's, your mother's...” He let the words flow gently around the waves of his buzzing tone. “But when it comes to that, he would never allow it.”

Hannibal's eyes reached briefly for him, without allowing them to meet, and Molly pressed her lips together in a wry smile as she sucked in her cheeks, and stared back through the curtains of honey blond hair. 

“It must have been unnerving, to find you have a heart?”, she said, not without a sharpness to the way her tongue cupped the words. But her eyes were swimming when she looked at Will, and stroked his curls with her gaze alone. He had been the wolf in her family of dogs; strong and unattainable, with no means to tame, and brewing darkness behind the soft, poodle curls.

“He is my heart,” Hannibal told her, a drop of venom coloring his words. “Take him, and nothing remains.” He didn't look at Will, and there was almost an accusation in the way he spoke. A warning, a little pinch of fear, perhaps, and it caused guns to straighten on the Alpha. 

“You don't sound too happy about that,” Molly commented conversationally, and Will's stomach fluttered when Hannibal's lips tipped into an actual smile, no matter how brief. “As you might agree with me, Molly,” he hummed pleasantly. “Weakness is an uncomfortable thing.”

Molly breathed, and Will watched her hand rub the back of her neck. “That is true,” she admitted with a nod of her head, “There are always plenty of people who want to exploit it.” Their eyes met, blue and gold, sky and earth, and Hannibal cocked his head, shuffling his foot against the wooden floor, testing the range.

“Not you,” he said, factually, reading what he found in her open gaze as Molly shook her bangs before her eyes. Where he normally watered the dirt for manipulation and games, she was barren land. “No,” she agreed. “I'm not here to exploit you.” She crossed her arms back over her chest, briefly watching Will clawing absently at the bare skin of his ankles. “I only want what's right for Will.”

The Omega brought up his hands to fist them into his hair, as he heard Hannibal's mocking reply. “Is _this_ what's best for Will?”, he questioned her, openly provoking, testing the depth of the waters. 

“It's beyond his control,” Molly replied, her pupils tightening with grief. “But being with you seems to help him.” Will knew she was looking at the blood that pumped strongly beneath his skin, and remembered his gray, still body on the hospital bed. Hannibal helped him.

“I know he needs you,” she said, a little quiver in her voice that made Hannibal's eyes gleam. “And it's not up to me to push beyond that, when it can only hurt him.” God. Will bit back the pain that gnawed at his ribs, and looked at Hannibal's straight stance across from her. Molly had read everything she had been able to get her hands on, he knew. She understood, to a degree, that they were joined in a way that reached far beyond what the eye could see. Far beyond what anyone could understand.

She didn't want to test the strength of the thread, risking it to snap. She was letting him go.

Will watched Hannibal, unable to break away for long. “We need each other, in all the same ways, at all the same levels,” his Alpha testified effortlessly to her, and Molly swallowed thickly at the words. And oh yes, the Omega knew just what his mate was doing.

The Alpha wouldn't let him hide anymore. He was sure to point out just how equally enslaved they both were to this desire and need, these primal urges, leading Will away from the role he was too often assigned. The victim, the helpless, the stray. Hannibal knew how strong he was, and how weak he appeared beside the strong Alpha man. But his mate refused to be seen as the predator to a prey any longer. He wanted Will to rise up, and show _proudly_ , who he had always been. Equally strong. Equally weak. Equally willing.

“What will your lives be like, from here on out?”, Molly asked Hannibal, no mockery in her voice as she looked at the holes in the glass wall. “Will he stay here with you?” She blinked, and looked back up at the Alpha's golden eyes that Will knew weakened the soul of any oblivious prey. A small shudder escaped her, before she asked: “Or will I have to pack my bags when I arrive back home?” Her voice was hushed, only for their ears to hear, and Hannibal openly enjoyed the picture that she painted for him. But he didn't play. “I will not come for you, Molly,” he said, and Will felt himself deflating like an air balloon. “Not unless you decide to make it necessary.” 

Molly held his eyes, weighing his words, as Hannibal looked back at her without wavering, or blinking. “You have my word,” he assured her, and Will knew he wasn't lying. Hannibal had no desire to hurt his own mate, and here, he felt the heaviness of the Omega's heart, because it hurt him to see her go. Hannibal had seen their eyes meet, and he had seen the love that flowed there, still. 

What he had also seen, was everything missing, that sparked between the Alpha and Omega. What lingered between the Omega and his wife was familiar, but dry. No fire. Not even a gust of wind. A gentle house cat, to a raging lion.

Molly was no threat. She was no competition.

“Ok,” Molly said, hesitating before she plucked white sheets of folded paper from her back pocket, and turned her head to meet Will's eyes across the room. “I printed this out,” she said, waving the stack in her hands. Her shoulders remained low. “It's just some things we both need to know, before we decide...”. The shrug that followed was a painful one for both, but Hannibal was not afraid to use the word they tiptoed around so carefully. 

“Do not arrange a divorce just yet,” he said, as if he wasn't shoving splinters under fingernails. His eyes scanned over the papers that Molly held in her hands. “When Will and I bond, your marriage will automatically be annulled.” It was an evenly spoken sentence, but Will felt like he had just gulped water down the wrong pipe. Molly froze, as fingers clenched around the white sheets, but Hannibal chose not to notice. “That way, you will be rewarded everything by the court.”

Both Will and Molly were rendered speechless by the sudden, practical announcement, slapped unto the table like a certainty. Bond? _When_ we bond? “Will?”, Molly stammered, her eyes round and bottomless on him as he clenched around every breath. 

He had decided to stay with Hannibal, yes. Not how, or where, or what this would entail. They had spoken of a bond, but they had never.....

Molly waited for him to speak, as Hannibal eyed them both with a perfectly smoothened out expression. _Goddammit._ Will wanted to throw a chair at his face. 

He looked at Molly, and found nothing else to say but: “I want you to have everything.” Because, of course she could. What would he need? What could he possibly need with a man who had everything life had on offer. Not presented on a golden plate, but taken from those less deserving. 

Everyone.

And there was nothing to add. Would they bond? How, where, when? There was nothing he could tell her.

Molly lowered her head and sighed, as she pushed the papers back in her pockets. 

So was this it? Was this the end of them? Unable to touch, unable to remember the good times, or goodbyes to her family and friends. All of it tainted. They didn't even speak of Walter. She would never risk him, by taking him here for a visit. She would never push the boy into a phone call or a letter. He was 12 years old, he had lost his real father, and he'd never shared one decent conversation with his step-dad. 

A step-dad who hadn't even joined them on holiday trips and outings. One that didn't come to his school play, because he couldn't take those hundreds of screechy children's voices bouncing on the inside of his skull, where they all collected in a miserable cacophony. There had always been too much for him to see. That child was overlooked by his hardworking mother, the other's family slept in their car, and another got a pony for Christmas. 

He'd never been a dad. He'd never been a husband. Everything in him rebelled against the notion, long before he ever understood it.

He'd already had a mate.

_Fuck._

She stood there, eyes on him and eyes on Hannibal, who blinked lazily at her lost expression. 

“Tell me one thing, Molly,” the Alpha chafed over the pain, and Will watched his mate's amber eyes soothing her with a gentle stare. He knew the almost hypnotic quality of those eyes and that voice, like being rocked to sleep in your mother's arms. 

“Why did you choose Will as a partner, after your first husband passed away?” The question was unexpected, but Molly learned quickly, and she was no longer surprised by whatever the Alpha threw at her. She eased into it, like a hot bath, the decision far beyond herself.

Before she could answer, Hannibal led her in deeper. “It must not have been easy to move forward in love, after such a loss,” he said. “And I cannot imagine our dear Will being the warm blanket of comfort you would have needed at the time.” Both Will and Molly blinked at the harsh words wrapped in a gentle tone. 

Will was not delusional any longer. He could see himself for what he had been, as a husband and a dad. There was truth, but he wondered why Hannibal felt the need to lay it bare.

“Did he not _look_ at you, to see the damage life has caused you?”, Hannibal asked her, and Molly smiled that rueful smile, contorting her lovely face with memories. “Will looked ahead. Not at me,” she confessed, but her eyes were gentle, as she looked at Will, weakened by injuries and folded on the bed. 

“He didn't force you to be _weak_ ,” Hannibal said, as he followed her gaze, and Will felt his skin tightening in a cold, hard pull. Hannibal wasn't cruel. He was helping her. “He didn't force you to be the widow, when you weren't ready to be.” 

Molly chuckled wetly, as she dragged up her nose and stretched her lips past her teeth. “He never pitied me,” she said, eyes shimmering wetly. “He never asked me how I was holding up.”

“He never allowed you to break,” Hannibal agreed, his voice light, but the shadow of purpose swam beneath the surface. “He didn't carry your burden, but he kept you strong.” Molly's eyes flashed back from Will to Hannibal, as she took a deep breath, and nodded her head. “If I would have broken then, I would have stayed that way,” she confessed, her voice small to the steady drone of Hannibal's.

“You have a child,” he said, setting up a following thought that she finished: “Which is why I couldn't break.” She sniffled, and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Walter needed _me_. No one else,” she said, and Will felt his throat tighten. He had never taken the role of a father. But in return, he had never been offered it either.

She hadn't needed it from him.

Hannibal looked at Will, and his eyes felt like a feather to the bridge of his nose. “Will is pure empathy,” the Alpha spoke, like a prayer. “All his life he lived inside his own mind, so he didn't have to live in others'.” His mate smiled, beautifully tender, and Will felt his body flush with warmth and longing so weakening he could cry. Hannibal showed a sliver of teeth, no longer red, and added a: “Not always successfully.” 

Molly's lips pressed together as she watched the possessive glance at Will. “You left him damaged,” she accused. “I've heard him crying at night. I've watched him struggle every day,” she frowned at the Alpha as Hannibal's eyes narrowed briefly. “But he would never tell you the reason for his suffering,” he countered, bringing his eyes back to Molly with an amber swirl. “Will was an absent man,” he said, a spark lighting his eyes. “And an absent man suited you.”

A tear fell to land by Molly's feet, so quickly it was hard to catch, but Hannibal followed the drop as it splashed against the floor. “You weren't ready for a new man to take that place in your lives,” he told her, and Molly wiped a hand at her shining eyes. “You weren't ready for another member to your family.”

Hannibal's fingers slid together as if in slow motion, and came to rest against the small of his back. “You weren't alone, you didn't have to be vulnerable,” he continued, his voice a warm breeze in chilly spring. “You didn't have to open up.” Molly had her sleeves pulled over her hands as she caught another tear that threatened to fall over the rim, letting herself be pulled in by the truth of Hannibal's words. “Nor did he unload his problems onto you.”

Molly looked at Will, and he watched the rings of guilt floating inside her eyes. He smiled wetly at her, relief tight but freeing inside his veins. “Yes, you love him,” Hannibal said as he watched her pained gaze fall on his Omega. “He was everything you needed.”

He remained so calm, and Will felt awe for his powerful beast. “And he needed you,” his Alpha offered, and Will squeezed his trembling fingers into fists. Hannibal loved to play with the fish on his hook, and yet he chose to free her. Not undamaged, but certainly not flailed.

The Alpha stepped closer to her, his chains rattling on the floor and the guards peeked up. But Molly only had eyes for Hannibal as he smiled at her and said: “But now the wind has stilled, Molly. It's time to adjust our sails and set for our true destinations.”

The words were an echo in the room, in their bones, and silence followed so loudly it was deafening.

Let him go. That's what Hannibal had told her. Let him go, and set yourself free from the pains of your past.

Molly's tears dried in her eyes, where light shimmered in the dark, and strength curled around the hope she had stored, dry and dark, for a day she felt strong enough to carry it. Today, it seemed, was that day.

Today would free them.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Molly said, her voice strong but hoarse as she took a deep breath and wiped her hair away from her face. Hannibal nodded once, and she looked at him for one lost moment, and took a step back from the wall. 

“Molly,” Will called when he saw her reach for her coat. Their eyes met through glass, as the Alpha stepped back, away from the conversation. “I know,” Molly chocked, “I'll be home. Whenever you need me.”

Everyone was quiet, as the conversation had left such silence within them all. “I'll be here,” Will returned, as Hannibal clicked his tongue inside his mouth. _For now_ , he seemed to say. Molly missed it, as did the guards. “Stay where you need to be,” Molly warned him, her eyes sharp on his wounded cheek. “I don't want you to hurt anymore.”

Will nodded, not knowing how much he could promise, as she zipped up, and stepped back from the glass. “I'm not going to tell you _goodbye_ ,” she said stubbornly, her voice a violent quiver that broke his heart. “I can't do that.”

And she nodded at him, at Hannibal, she gave him that smile, those big blue eyes full of warmth and grief.

He waited until she had left the room, with the guards closing the door behind her.

“Goodbye, Molly.”


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will flashed his teeth, as a low growl rose from between his ribs like the roar of a vintage car. “No,” he lashed again, violently shaking his head as he pressed his hands to his face, and felt the warm, wet stitches against his skin. His knees buckled, and he started pacing short distances back and forth, before his mate. “No, no, no.” Will's eyes were hot fury on Hannibal as he watched him like a stalking predator. His back was hunched, his shoulders tense, and his whole body ragged with his deep, panting lungs.
> 
> The Alpha didn't move to defend himself, as he watched his mate pacing around him like a stalking tiger, ready to pounce. And Will did pounce. When the Omega lashed out, Hannibal growled at the sudden, solid weight that crashed into him, making him stumble in his chains. But Hannibal caught him with hard fingers on his wrists, and in that single second, Will saw his mate's fear flash openly through those golden eyes. 
> 
> Hannibal didn't want to fight him. Hannibal didn't want to hurt him. Hannibal didn't want to upset him.

Molly was gone. 

It was over.

Done.

_God. Oh God._

Will sat with his back against the wall, looking at the closed door through which he'd watched her disappear, and felt like he had stepped outside his body. His chest was raging, tightening and expanding around a maddening tangle of blunt emotions that tried to fight their way out through his – far too narrow – throat. He could behold the swirl of pain and relief like an outsider. But the feeling was unreal, muted, numbed. As if wrapped in plastic, inside himself. 

He breathed in and felt the air blocked inside the deeper part of his lungs, as he dug his nails into the bedding beneath him. It was silent in the room when he turned his head and looked at Hannibal, who watched him in return. His eyes were a careful gold, with only a dull shimmer behind a protective film over the Alpha's eyes, cautious, and it made Will feel like he was balancing high on an unsteady stool. 

There was so much he should be feeling in this moment, and so much that he shouldn't, but his eyes viewed the world through a tight tunnel that blurred everything around the strong outlines of the man by the glass wall. Hannibal. His mate. 

He pushed himself off of the bed, not registering the stretch of his damaged skin around the stitches as he slid off the mattress and onto unsteady feet. _Oh_. Blood rushed to his head, as sparks flashed before his eyes, and the room was dancing around him like waves of the rolling sea. But he didn't stop to catch his breath as Hannibal turned to him with flexing arms, tensing shoulders, and eyes widened, as if caught off-guard by the sudden kick start inside his wounded mate. Will flashed him a look that was sharp enough to breach bone, as he bee-lined for the bathroom door with strong steps on his weak legs. “ _Come_ ,” he lashed out in the Alpha's direction, and turned without looking back to see if he did. 

His hand was on the doorknob when the prison door unlocked behind them, and both heads turned at the noise of the unexpected clicking locks. _No. No._ Had Molly come back? _No._ Was there anything left for them to say? But it was Alana who entered the room, high heels and a white pantsuit, and Doctor Hammings following in her wake. Too curious. Too informed.

Will snarled at the sight of them, openly, his chin on his shoulder. The vicious noise that pushed between his exposed teeth was out before he could stop it. “Will?”, Alana called out to him, uncertainty and a pinch of fright coloring her face pale as she positioned herself behind the glass. _Fear._ It was oddly satisfying to the drunkly swaying Omega to see he could make a dent in her flawless exterior. 

“No, Alana,” he growled from deep within his belly, more feral than he had ever dared to be. The nerve she possessed to come to him now. The nerve to bring that fucking doctor. _How dare they._ “Not now.” He threw his shoulder against the bathroom door and banged it open with his weight, before he bristled inside with short movements that yanked at the thread in his flesh. It didn't matter. He didn't feel it. He didn't feel any of it.

It only took his Alpha a small second to close the door behind them, as he followed after with chains clanging on the floor. It was unnerving, had Will been able to brush the thought, how fast his mate could move while chained by the ankles, when he felt the need for it. Will had already known; those shackles were just an illusion. 

The room was dark until the light buzzed on with a press of Hannibal's finger, and Will turned around, trembling on his weakened legs, as he looked at the man that had created such a violent mess. The Omega knew he was panting, openly wheezing, as his entire body shook with effort from the fall and rise of his chest. He looked at his Alpha, twitched his lips around his teeth, and allowed his eyes to fall deeply into the man that was the reason for all this turmoil. Everything.

 _Goddammit._ He was overwhelmed by the fierce desire to lunge at him with claws and teeth, until the cream tiles were smeared with red, runny blood. He wanted to slice open the Alpha's veins with his bare hands, and let it all pour out over smooth, paling flesh. He wanted to rip open that belly with his teeth and drown in the hot, wet insides of him. _Fuck,_ he was shaking. He was shaking so hard he could barely stand, but his power pulsed from the screaming howl inside his gut, and his head flashed blindly with noise and color that was a razor to his throbbing heart.

Hannibal returned the loaded stare of the shivering Omega with calm, acceptance, warmth, as if ready to receive what would be dealt to him. But Will only got one step in, when his sight was disturbed by the screaming, flashing from the corner of the ceiling. That blinking red dot. A fucking camera. They had installed a fucking camera. 

_NO._ They had been watching Hannibal as Will had been out there with Molly. They had seen his expressions, the wringing of hands or a twitch of the mouth. His mate's pain, or perhaps, his fury. Either out loud, or in complete, utter silence. Then, they had watched him and the Alpha together, when he had come to see Hannibal, chained and pressed to the wall. They had seen them. They had heard them. They put dirty fingers, ears and eyes all over what was his. Theirs. 

Theirs alone.

“No.” Fury rose up through his veins, and a raw snarl left his lips as he felt himself bursting open with indignation. “NO.” _Enough._ With a strength made solely from outrage, he flung himself onto the sink, pushed his knees up on the counter, reached, and snatched the camera from the wall with a furious yank of his fists. Feral, animal strength.

His back screamed. It didn't matter. Hannibal's hands were on him within an instant, steadying his body and catching his weight, forcing him to relieve the stretch of wounded skin. But Will pushed him away with his elbows, struggling against the stronger body that released him without a fight. “Will,” Hannibal hushed, concern and agitation covered by a sweet, soothing layer that felt hot on Will's skin, but the Omega stepped away from his touch and turned to him, as he held the broken camera in his clenched fists. It crumbled under the pressure, and black pieces of plastic littered the floor until the blinking light turned black. 

“You pitiless bastard,” Will hissed, before he smashed the broken device unceremoniously to the tiled floor, where it scattered into every corner. Hannibal didn't follow the flying plastic with his eyes, but kept his darkening gaze hard on his trembling mate. “Careful, Will,” he uttered, breathlessly anguished, but holding himself steady at the sight of his choleric mate. “You are injured.”

Will flashed his teeth, as a low growl rose from between his ribs like the roar of a vintage car. _“No,”_ he lashed again, violently shaking his head as he pressed his hands to his face, and felt the warm, wet stitches against his skin. His knees buckled, and he started pacing short distances back and forth, before his mate. “No, no, no.” Will's eyes were hot fury on Hannibal as he watched him like a stalking predator. His back was hunched, his shoulders tense, and his whole body ragged with his deep, panting lungs.

The Alpha didn't move to defend himself, as he watched his mate pacing around him like a stalking tiger, ready to pounce. And Will did pounce. When the Omega lashed out, Hannibal growled at the sudden, solid weight that crashed into him, making him stumble in his chains. But Hannibal caught him with hard fingers on his wrists, and in that single second, Will saw his mate's fear flash openly through those golden eyes. 

Hannibal didn't want to fight him. Hannibal didn't want to hurt him. Hannibal didn't want to upset him.

But the Alpha's growl turned higher in pitch when he wasn't met with fists, or teeth or sharp, desperate claws. Instead, Will smashed his open lips punishingly hard to Hannibal's mouth, snarling furiously into the contact. “Fuck you,” he hissed against his mate's bruised mouth as Hannibal groaned deeply inside his throat, and pressed back into the brutal contact. 

“Fuck,” Will moaned, clawing at the Alpha's clothed back, as Hannibal ripped their lips apart and rained biting kisses down his mate's throat. His relief was thick enough to drink, as he pushed all of himself against the cursing Omega. “You are ruthless,” Will hissed his accusation, pushing his sharp nails against the fabric that covered Hannibal's shoulders. The Alpha grabbed his arms and forced their chests to press tightly together, meshing their raging heartbeats into one. Will snapped at his mate's swollen lips. “You are fucking ruthless, Hannibal,” he repeated, and Hannibal growled into his skin, squeezing Will's arms with demanding fingers as his straight nose followed up into his mate's messy curls, 

“I saw your compassion,” Will called him out as his fingers laced through silver hair, and yanked back the Alpha's head with a sharp, vicious tug. “I watched you hide it inside your malice.” Hannibal snarled when his head was forced back with brutal force, as Will snapped his teeth to the skin of his throat. Scraping, scratching, pushing in until droplets of blood rose to the surface. “Everything I said was true,” the Alpha grunted through his clenched jaw, and Will shoved two hard hands against the Alpha's chest, pushing him to the wall.

“Shut up,” he growled heatedly, snapping at Hannibal's lips before claiming them thoroughly with his own. The sounds that echoed between the walls were of wet lips, breathless hums, grunts, growls, and the clang of shifting chains. It was as wild as it was needful, to the point of desperation. “Just shut up.” And they stumbled, gripping and lashing at each other, as Hannibal's chains clattered and scraped against the tiles. “You've talked enough,” Will sneered, before biting down on Hannibal's bottom lip with straight, front teeth. The Alpha growled into his mouth with buzzing arousal as Will sucked the blood from his punctured skin.

“Will,” Hannibal groaned out warningly, steadying himself when the Omega pressed against him, and his chains locked his ankles in place. “No,” Will snapped, catching his Alpha from tripping with a hard shove from his own arms, pushing him with his back to the wall. “I saw you,” he hissed, and Hannibal look bewilderedly aroused at the undressing hands that came up to rip at the buttons of his suit,.

“I saw you try, for me,” Will choked between his teeth, scattering two buttons from Hannibal's suit as he ripped the fabric around his mate's chest, and pushed his hands inside. He felt the hot skin of his mate's back, his shoulders and sides, as he mouthed at his neck. “I saw your love for me.” His lips moved down the Alpha's sternum, into the hair that sprung from his chest, and his hands slid wholly down Hannibal's chest, his belly, up and down his ribs. 

Hannibal groaned when Will closed his lips around a sensitive, peaking nipple, almost openly dumbfounded at the delightful assault from the furious Omega. He worked hands into his mate's hair, and gripped at the soft strands. “You love me, Will,” he pushed between his swollen, panting lips, tightening fingers in the curls as the Omega bit punishingly on the teased, pinkening flesh in his mouth.

“She's gone,” Hannibal said, pressing a hint of nails against Will's skull. “You let her go.” The pull on his hair forced Will to raise his head from the tightened nipple between his lips, and face his Alpha with a daring glint in his ocean eyes. “Admit that you chose me,” Hannibal growled at him. “Admit that you always wanted to.” The kiss that followed was a battle, furious, heated savagery where every move was made to hurt and cherish in the same breath.

“Stay against the wall,” Will snarled breathlessly, as he pushed Hannibal's body flushed against the tiles. The chains on the floor rattled with every movement, as the Alpha tried to reach for him, needing him closer. “Don't move,” Will warned him with vicious teeth, his frantic hands ripping at the Alpha's clothing. “Will...”, the Alpha uttered, dazed and lost when his mate reached past his bellybutton, but Will clasped a hard hand over his mouth. “Not another word,” he growled, hissing when his mate pulled his hands from his face with a strong but careful grip.

“Will, you're wounded,” Hannibal breathed against his hand, squeezed tightly inside the Alpha's hold. “You haven't healed.” The words were a sweet caress, but Will yanked back his fingers and gripped them around his Alpha's throat. “No.” His blood pumped hot and fast beneath his fingers as he snapped, and pushed one hand down over Hannibal's exposed stomach.

“I'm yours?”, he growled, letting his nails run sharply over the gentle swell of his mate's belly, where the muscles twitched beneath his touch. “Is that what you want me to tell you?” He squeezed his fingers tighter against Hannibal's windpipe, as his touch slid lower into the open prison-suit pants, and scissored around the root of Hannibal's rapidly swelling cock.

 _“You are mine,”_ Will roared furiously at him, claiming the Alpha's gasping mouth and licking over sharp, sharp teeth. Chains clanged, as Hannibal's feet tried to part, and the Alpha released a noise of angry arousal between Will's parted lips, leaning back helplessly against the wall,

Will's hands ripped at the jumpsuit, yanking the fabric over the Alpha's shoulders and exposing the naked skin beneath. More. Fuck, he needed more. He heard a sharp inhale through his Alpha's nose as he shoved the jumpsuit roughly down his hips, over the Alpha's proud cock and down his shins, until it pooled around Hannibal's ankles. Shackled, trapped by his clothes as well as his chains, pressed against the wall, and a furious mate that snarled at every movement. Helpless.

Exposed and utterly helpless. 

Just like he had fantasized.

Will did not move to explore the hot, soft skin of Hannibal's torso with his hands and tongue and violent teeth. There was only one thing he wanted to do in this moment. Something new. Something he had wondered about during quiet hours in Hannibal's arms, or while touching himself in his lonely motel room. Or maybe even before any of that.

He traced a hand down his mate's furry belly, before he followed his own touch, and sank to his knees before his mate. His back stung, and his knees ached on the hard tiles as he came down to Hannibal's strong, hairy thighs. This was what he wanted. The taste, the heat, the weight of his Alpha against his tongue... Oh, he had never done this before. Not ever. But the fear and the doubt were small inside this frenzy of fury and mindless relief. 

It was over. Over. And this was all that remained. Control, gratitude, and a painful, feral need.

Hannibal's cock was already hard as a rock, red and big, as Will slid his rough cheek against the swollen head. Uncut, thick and long, like an animal, more than a gentleman. If only all those people that had met Hannibal in perfectly pressed suits knew what was hidden beneath the facade. They would fear him, maybe, or beg him for it. A touch, a taste, or the feeling of something truly powerful breaching the inside. 

Will snarled at the thought alone, and Hannibal jerked his hips at the violent sound so near his sensitive, vulnerable flesh. No. Hannibal was his. All of this, was his. But, nonetheless, the envy he imagined people would feel if they knew, made Will throb in his own prison clothes. 

Hannibal's thighs trembled with bewildered impatience, as Will took hold of the large erection that nuzzled against his cheek. _Fuck._ The skin was soft, the flesh was hard, the girth too much to reach around. And the smell; musk, ashes in the fireplace, and everything that filled the air around them when they touched like this. Sex. It made Will hard and wet against the cotton fabric of his jumpsuit, and he squeezed his fingers experimentally around the shaft. Oh, _fuck yes._

He looked up with wide, ocean eyes, to see the light in his mate's eyes dancing with a hazy blur. Spotlights through the clouds. Will felt his skin breaking out into goosebumps at the sight of him. Hannibal never let anyone take this kind of control, Will had no doubt. Submission had never been anything but an act. But here he was, allowing Will to see his surrender, and how it aroused the Alpha endlessly. Will could tell by the way the moist head twitched against his skin, as a drop of clear fluid pushed between the slit of the spongy flesh.

 _“Will,”_ Hannibal choked above him. A warning, a plea, or maybe a prayer, as the Omega kept his eyes up, and slowly opened his lips around the bulging head of his mate's cock. _God._ The taste was new, yet already so familiar. Winter fire. Snow and ashes. Blood and honey. 

He wouldn't be able to fit all of it inside his mouth, no. He didn't have the experience to slide the entire length down his throat, until it nudged the back of him. He couldn't allow Hannibal to fuck his mouth without the risk of ripping him apart. But it didn't matter. It wasn't about that. It wasn't even about Hannibal. 

This was about Will, wanting to taste him, to feel him, to own him. Every inch, inside and out.

The Alpha's legs trembled when Will opened his mouth further and deeper around the width, and pushed over the veiny, glistering skin around the hard shaft. Hannibal's breath stuttered violently as he reached down to fist his hands in Will's curls. But the Omega growled dangerously around the throbbing flesh, and flashed a venomous glare that could only be considered a warning. Hannibal released him without a word, as his eyes glazed over, like glittering pools of still water, catching the early sunlight.

Will pressed his tongue under the thick head as he pressed himself closer around the hot flesh. Breathing heavily through his nose and feeling Hannibal stretching his jaw, as saliva flowed from the back of his mouth. _Fuck._ He might have never done this before, but the stunned, quivering silence that came over his Alpha made Will's belly weak with need and warmth, causing him to curse himself for denying them this pleasure before now. It was a slice of fragility, breakable as glass, with Hannibal completely surrendered to the Omega's hands on the puppets. It was intoxicating. Frighteningly, beautifully so.

Hannibal's breath hitched with a small wheeze when Will sucked his mouth around him. It was a noise he had never heard from his mate before, and despite everything, his lips stretched around the Alpha into a smug smile. It was the sound of a wounded deer, trapped in the darkness of the forest. So lost, on the steep edge of control. Will slid him in further, but it was only half way that he already felt the heavy cock bumping the back of his throat, nudging his gag reflex. _Fuck,_ the Alpha was deep and full inside his mouth, and Will swallowed around the shaft with a constricted throat.

Will's belly fluttered as Hannibal whined through his nose, eyes glued on the view, before his hand found the neglected part of the Alpha's cock and wrapped itself around the girth as far as it would go, squeezing his mate and cupping his balls with a massaging roll of his fingers. “Hhhaa,” the Alpha pushed helplessly against him, and Will could see the flexing of his thighs under his skin, betraying his struggle to keep still, instead of pushing himself further into his Omega's throat. _No_ Hannibal knew he had no say in this. Nothing to demand. Will could pull away and leave him standing here without a glance over his shoulder. This game was Will's, for a change, and he could do nothing but participate.

Will hummed as he pushed his lips back over the swollen flesh, leaving a trail of glistering saliva behind as he let his tongue slide around the veins. He didn't pull away completely, but left the now purple, pulsing head between his swollen lips, suckling lightly on the slit and tasting the raw taste of pre-cum that leaked from between. _Fuck,_ he tasted like it, too. Those early winter mornings when the snow amongst the pine-trees was fresh and unblemished by dirty feet. Bitterly pure.

When the Alpha twitched helplessly against him, Will pushed two stern hands flat against the hipbones to keep his mate in place, and forced Hannibal to thud even harder against the tiled wall he was trapped against. _No_. He didn't say the word, but it screamed from every pore. 

Not you. _Me._

Will clenched around the hot slick that slid down the swell of his ass and down his thighs, as it dripped into his dirty clothes. His cock was painfully hard and trapped against his front, but he didn't touch himself, riding the waves of raw pleasure vicariously as he closed his eyes and pushed the Alpha back into his mouth again. Deeper. Tighter. Faster. Again and again, and again. His hand pumped the pulsing flesh he couldn't take inside of him, before he pulled away, and mouthed a range of sucking kisses along the length, from tip to thick, dark root. Hannibal had done that to him, whenever he had allowed him, and Will remembered just how good it had felt.

Hannibal's breathing was shallow and hard, as he panted around words he was not allowed to speak. And he obeyed. He didn't speak, or pump his hips, or did anything other than submit completely to the man who pushed back the foreskin with his lips, and rubbed his tongue along the sensitive underside of the drenched head.

The Alpha's face was flushed, his hands were fists, his eyes were black as night with lashes that fluttered like bats, as a growl rumbled from between his lips. The sound vibrated all the way down to tremble along Will's jaw, and the Omega moaned a response around the hardness that filled his mouth.

Hannibal was a caged beast, tamed with a pleasure that had the mighty monster lying on his back, paws in the air, obeying without a fight. “Hmmn.” More of Hannibal's pearly pre-cum dripped on Will's tongue as he took the hard, hot flesh against the inside of his cheek and sucked on it with a jaw that couldn't push any further. The Alpha's knees buckled with weakness and desire as little noises slipped from his nose and throat, unstoppable, unsuppressable, as Hannibal watched Will working him so beautifully. Muscles twisted and buckled with effort to keep still, as his stomach rippled, his thighs clenched and quivered, and the Alpha balls drew up tightly. Will's fingers cupped him, circling around the soft, taunt skin as his other hands gripped his mate's cock, and milked him with every bob of his head.

Fuck, it was powerful. It was punishingly, rewardingly powerful. Will held his eyes open, and watched Hannibal watching him, balancing high above the ground on a slim, slippery rope. If he fell, he would fall deep, hard. 

To Will, it was a sight as moving as the time he'd laid eyes on him before La Primavera. He was an oil painting in the artificial bathroom light, swarming with so much battle within, as he flowed hard and high on the surrender. He buzzed so bright with it, it seemed as if he was made from color and smoke, instead of corporeal flesh.

But the vibrating hardness in Will's mouth was very real, in taste and feel and scent alike, and his tongue played over the skin as he flexed his nails against Hannibal's tight abdomen. Claws dug in and the Alpha hissed, but he didn't move an inch as the stuttering rumble flowed through his bones, as he pressed his full weight against the wall.

Will slid the swell of his lips back and forth over the hard, weeping cock in his mouth, leaving the head in the tight space between his lips before pushing himself forward and taking the swollen shaft back in so far his eyes watered, and his throat rebelled against the intrusion. Saliva gathered heavily from the back of his throat as he fought the urge to gag around the thick, pressing head, but his red-rimmed eyes never wavered from Hannibal's abandoned, entranced gaze on him.

His mate groaned hopelessly in the silent bathroom, only otherwise disturbed by the wet noises of Will's mouth on the dripping flesh between his lips, as spit and pre-cum dribbled down the corners. The Omega punished the noise with a squeeze around the tightened balls in his hand, which only made the Alpha buckle his hips with an uncharacteristic whimper, allowing his despair to show through the cracks of his facade.

“Quiet,” Will warned him again, his eyes squinting into slits and lips brushing the shaft as he spoke. He needed full control, and Hannibal wasn't allowed anything but to shut his mouth and take whatever Will deemed him worthy of having. It had never been that way, and maybe it would never be again. But in this moment, it felt right.

The Omega picked up the pace when he heard the chains around Hannibal's ankles clattering against the tiles, as the Alpha tried to spread his legs wider than possible. Another struggle, another barrier, and it made Will press his legs together as he soaked through the back of his suit. He was maddeningly hard and wet to the back of his knees, but it only heightened the pleasure of the experience, being so aroused by something new, and frightening, and very, very empowering.

He licked Hannibal from root to tip, sucking his lips along the veins and pumping the slippery shaft with two whole hands. Hannibal trembled, and the metal chains trembled with him like a very off-sounding triangle, as he fought the wild whimpers on the inside of his throat. But his eyes were for Will, no matter how they rolled and fluttered in their sockets. He watched the stretch of Will's pink mouth, and the glistering spit that painted his swollen lips. And those watering, open ocean eyes that had him drown deeper, harder, tighter.

Will kept the leaking head between his lips, cupping the underside with his tongue as he worked his hands over the angry red, slick flesh of his Alpha's cock. Hannibal was close. The way his legs trembled, his belly spasmed, his cock pulsed against his tongue, and the hidden noises and growls that sprung from his mate's chest... the fuse was lit, and the sparks were flying closer to explosion.

Will licked the head, streaming with pearly fluid that pooled on his tongue. “Look at you,” he said, sneering up at Hannibal's flustered, lost expression as he rolled his head against the wall. Will's hands pumped around him tighter, faster, harder, as he continued to tongue the dripping slit. Fuck, he had never been that much of a sexual being ever before, but everything came natural with Hannibal, including the confidence to know that what he was doing, was all just right. Instinctively, he knew just what made his mate feel so good, so high, he was ready and willing to take the plunge, and plunder down to his own, _little death._

“You think you're invincible?”, he snarled against the hot, wet flesh, feeling it throbbing with the need for release against his lips and hands. Hannibal's hips jerked hard as Will sucked the head between his red lips, and the Alpha's fists pounded against the tiled wall behind him. He wanted to grab him, Will knew. He wanted to pull his hair and force his throat open far enough to fuck into him, hard enough to make the Omega hoarse for weeks. And if he truly wanted to, he could. He was stronger, he was bigger, he was crueler than Will could ever be. But his mate took the restraint, the punishment, the madness and he pleasure without fighting the need Will possessed inside himself to overpower his Alpha. To please him and to punish him in a single, hot breath, along raw, wet skin.

“Look at you, Alpha,” Will growled, mocking him as he watched his mate fighting to stay upright, eyes turned blind, hands gripping against the tiles, and chains shaking against the floor. He was leaking sweat from his hair and skin, rolling down in drops along his temple as he parted his lips to hiss out a command even Will couldn't deny him. 

He didn't want to.

“Open your mouth,” the Alpha panted harshly, as his hands finally allowed himself to lace in Will's damp curls. Not to pull or yank, but certainly to guide with a rough push of thumbs against his skull. Will moaned his pleasure openly as he opened all of his hot mouth around the big, leaking erection, stroking the underside with his tongue as he continued to jerk his Alpha with his hands. Fast, hard strokes, with an upwards twist of his wrist. He hummed around his full mouth and flashed his eyes up to squint at his powerful mate, completely delivered to Will's mercy. 

And Hannibal lost it, violently. He shook so hard, Will feared the tiles would break under the clanging chain, as the Alpha let out a furious growl that brought tight goosebumps to Will's skin. And then he flooded the Omega's mouth, hard and plentiful, with the hot flow of thick semen that ran down his throat without a swallow. Will gasped and sputtered as Hannibal held him in place, pushing himself as deep as he could go as he came inside Will, and filled his mouth until it spilled down the corners, down his chin, and onto his clothed chest.

 _Oh God._ Will tried to take every drop, but there was no way he could keep up as the heavy flow was too much to swallow away. But Hannibal groaned so abandonedly as his fingers massaged small, fast and absent circles against Will's skull, which was maddeningly, beautifully arousing to the Omega. And it was all of it: that fresh snow, the ashes of the burned wood, the bitter musk and the smoke from the campfire. It burned Will's throat with a fierce tingle, and warmed his belly from the inside as it settled inside of him. So comfortable, as if it had belonged there in the first place.

The moment the Alpha's knees found a steadier strength, and the last drops of cum slid over Will's tongue, he was hauled up by his jumpsuit by two, furious hands. 

He gasped when he was pulled to his feet, and came face to face with a complete ruffled, raging Alpha. Eyes black as coal, wet with pleasure, damp with sweat and weak with ecstasy. A strong fist clawed into the front of Will's clothes, before he was yanked, nose to nose, with his panting mate. “Is this what you want?”, Hannibal spat at him through sharp fangs and bitten lips.

Will narrowed his eyes, challenging Hannibal as the taller man shivered with fury and desire. A rough hand ripped open the front of Will's jumpsuit, and wasted no time reaching in between the Omega's legs to grasp the hard, leaking cock. Will cried, and buckled at the contact that was already too much, gripping him cruelly hard and fast around his overstimulated, neglected hardness. Their noses clashed, and a biting kiss nipped hard at Will's thoroughly used mouth before a tongue darted across his lips, his chin, tasting the remains of what the Omega had done to him. “I'm not your humble servant, _boy_ ,” the Alpha spat at him, squeezing him tightly with his hands as he manhandled his mate into another violent kiss that tasted of sex, and nothing else.

Hannibal jerked him inside his suit, mercilessly and rough, as his mate balanced on the edge of pain and pleasure so sharp it was enough to make him cry true tears. “I'm your master,” Hannibal growled against his face, as Will's open, panting mouth pressed forwards, searching more, even when he couldn't take it. The Alpha held him as he shuddered, feeling his orgasm approaching like an avalanche. 

“As you are mine,” Hannibal whispered the words fiercely against his lips, and Will threw his head backwards as he pushed his hips hard into Hannibal's touch. “Yes,” he choked, before he felt his body tightening hard around that hot ball of fire that blazed inside his belly, before he released himself all over the Alpha's merciless hand. 

“Oh, ohhh, oh my God,” he shuddered wildly against the Alpha, open lips against his mate as he shook to the point of convulsion, and leaked hot seed over his mate's tight fists. His moans didn't stop, as he felt the pleasure drawing up to his groin from the tip of his toes, and bleeding out between every vertebra in his spine. “God, fuck,” he slumped his weight completely into the Alpha's strong, but trembling arms as drops of semen continued to be milked by Hannibal's fierce fingers, and dripped over his hand as well as the damp skin of his exposed belly.

“Oh, oh, God, oh.” It was shameful, but Will couldn't stop moaning out his pleasure as he thrashed against the Alpha, and let himself be held, be freed and captured at once, as he rode out his orgasm with his stuttering hips. Fuck. It hadn't been long since they'd touched each other, and the whole ordeal had not been sweet, or gentle. But it was intense, and thoroughly enough for Will to forget today's events, and rub his body against his mate, placing his content nose in the crook of Hannibal's shoulder.

He clung to him. He wanted him. He needed him. Enough to make his eyes drip, as his body went slack and lips pushed and sucked on the Alpha's neck, as if nursing on his skin. They stood, barely dressed, inside the bathroom, trapped against the tiled wall, wet and sticky and filthy with semen, slick, saliva and sweat. And they held each other in a tight embrace as they searched for air, accepting their desires. It wasn't always polite, but it was alive and real and breathtakingly powerful.

“I want to yell at you,” Will panted against Hannibal's sweaty skin, as he licked a trail up to the Alpha's ear. It was salty, like the ocean. “You have,” his mate hummed in his ear, releasing Will's cock with a swipe of his thumb. Will's hips jerked, as the last drop fell from the head, and leaked down to pool in his pubic hair. Fuck, he was spent to the last drop, the last tear, the last of whatever had been left for him to give. But the cause had been most worthy.

“I want to yell at you some more,” he told Hannibal, who chuckled against him, leaning back against the wall with spread legs, bound by the thick chain. He nuzzled against Will's temple, who sighed against him with true satisfaction. “And I want to stay in here with you forever.” 

The confession was a loaded one. Forever was a long time. And forever was more than an inescapable destiny. It meant 'willing', rather than forced. A bond.

“Forever sounds right,” Hannibal told him, as he slid his unapologetic hands over Will's chest, along his nipples, down his sides. “But not in here.” Will closed his eyes, exhaustion taking him as he murmured only noise into the Alpha's neck. He could sleep, leaning against his mate, in this very moment. Hannibal bit his ear shell with careful teeth, and hummed blissfully as he nudged Will playfully with his nose.

“I could get used to this method of showcasing your gratitude,” he teased, sucking the lobe of Will's ear between his lips and pulling at the rosy flesh. But Will pushed against the broad chest, narrowing his eyes sleepily at his mate. “No. No, no,” he warned, pressing their foreheads together. “The ice is still thin.” The words were muttered until he pressed their lips together, and allowed Hannibal to wrap arms around his waist.

“You made it worse than you had to,” Will said, lazily confusing, as his Alpha tilted his head to pull his lips between his own. “And you made it so much better than I thought you would,” Hannibal smiled against his mouth, and Will couldn't help but follow the pull as he pressed his widely stretched lips to Hannibal's.

They stood there, breathing in, touching, tasting, and forever would have been just fine. But Will's head started to sag against the Alpha's shoulder, when his mate carefully pushed him back up and said: “Bed?”

“Bed,” Will agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the support I got for the last chapter <3 ^.^ WOW!! It was amazing! <3 I was pretty nervous but the replies warmed my heart until it melted all over my shoes!  
> Hope you enjoyed a little bit of angry smut! They needed to work through some tention :-P You know how it is when you just left your wife and your boyfriend is chained up and super hot, in prison......we've all been there!  
> Love you guys so much!! I am so so grateful!


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will stretched out his limbs out as the Alpha pushed himself gracefully back onto his feet. “No need to be crude, Will,” he scolded the Omega from over his shoulder, as he walked back to the abandoned bookcase. A punishment for bad behavior. Ungracefulness was not something Hannibal partook in, after all. But his steps were light, and his shoulders low. Will knew it was all game, no prize. No penalty.
> 
> Maybe not anymore. But there had been, once. 
> 
> “Where was I to tell you that when you sliced off Abigail's ear and stuffed it down my throat?”, Will retorted, a sudden sharpness to his tone he hadn't meant to add, but that rose from the depths of his core nonetheless. Will had wanted to spar, as they always did so well. But suddenly, his throat was dry with a claiming, raw sadness.

Hannibal was standing by the bookcase, tracing spines with his fingers, and lost in his own swirl of shielded thoughts. Will watched him, down on his belly on the bed with arms folded beneath his chin, as he swung his legs restlessly up in the air, and dropped them back against the mattress.

Silence. Soft, secluded, silence.

The Alpha appeared surprisingly unalert within the scene. His shoulders hung low, his head balanced loosely on his neck, and his hand stroked his books absentmindedly, like a lover in the afterglow. It made Will's eyes soften as they stroked pleasantly over his mate's elegant frame. Hannibal was rarely at ease enough to turn his back, close his eyes, loosen and lose himself. Not without one ear permanently peaked.

But here, he gave out the impression he felt free enough around Will to allow himself to be vulnerable. He seemingly trusted him, even when the Omega had proven time and time again that he was not always to be trusted. Will had betrayed him, time and again, just like Hannibal had betrayed Will with equally twisted brutality. 

But Will had been forgiven, every time, without needing to ask for absolution. Hannibal had never wasted time to make that clear. Contrary to his habits, he believed in bygones, mistakes, second, third, and fourth chance when it came to his Omega.

Or maybe it was just love. 

Will looked at his mate, and wished it was as easy for him. To forgive, to forget, to leave things behind and bury them, dead. To look at Hannibal, without looking back. 

His beast wanted nothing more. His beast already had. But his human was apprehensive. Cautious. Always. Will Graham was built on a hill of betrayal, and it seemed too steep for him to simply leap off. His mother left, his father lied, and he, himself, had always tried to stamp himself with what he'd never achieved to become: a regular Joe. 

The biggest betrayal had come from within.

So Will did not easily forgive, and he never, ever, forgot. Because memory was all he had to protect himself, and to keep from making that one mistake a second time. History taught him tough lessons that he took to heart, and that clung to his beating flesh until they grew to be a part of him. Unable to rip without bleeding. The only person able to make you look the fool, after all, was yourself.

Will sighed from his nose as he watched the gentle curve of Hannibal's waist dip into his narrow hips. They had slept all the way to morning, huddled together on the single bed. Their noses had touched, and their ankles had crossed, as one hand curled around Will's ribs to feel his steady heartbeat. After breakfast, Hannibal had finally been released from the shackles around his ankles. They wouldn't be missed, but surely fondly remembered.

Will worried his bottom lip between his teeth. This, right here, was a sliver of peace, after so many moments of unruliness, and his insides itched to disrupt it once more. “ _When_ we are bonded?”, he asked over his own arms, carefully easing the words into the silence with a soft, steady voice. They were unexpectedly sudden, as if he'd snatched them from mid-air like an insistent fly. Instead, the thought had frenzied around his head, ever since Molly left the room. 

_“ **When** Will and I bond, your marriage will automatically be annulled.”_

They had never agreed to bond. Not really. Will asked for it, once, during that extremely powerful and fragile moment of weakness they had shared in the bathroom. But Hannibal had denied him, because he knew his plead was born from his need for excuses. A way to hide behind his Alpha, and to avoid having to end his marriage, properly.

Molly was gone, and they had yet to discuss the next step. But then, yesterday, it had suddenly sounded like Hannibal had just decided to claim him, without needing his stance on the matter. A decision upon which the Alpha could easily act. If he'd wanted them to bond, all he would have to do was bite down. The thought danced around Will's mind with forceful jumps, both thunderous and fluttering.

His chin remained resting on his forearms, as he watched the Alpha tap fingers against the white shelves of his bookcase. He didn't respond, nor did he turn to look at him. Only the single twitch of the back of his neck indicated he had heard his Omega's accusation, wrapped inside a question. Will waited, watching the strong back hidden by pale gray cotton, and remembered those flexing muscles under his hands as the Alpha moved over him, surrounded him, entered him, again and again, and again.

“Hannibal?”, he pressed, and saw the Alpha's ears twitch helplessly at the sound of his name, called out by his mate. He was powerless against that call, Will knew. It affected him no differently. After all the hardship between them, there was no room left to deny the other.

“Will,” Hannibal acknowledged dryly, finally turning away from the bookcase as he rubbed his hands together, as if lathering them up with soap. Even a gesture born from defense, agitation or guilt, looked royal on the strong, proud Alpha. 

But Will didn't want to scold him, or correct him. He wanted to look at Hannibal, and he wanted to understand. 

“What is a bond between an Alpha and Omega, exactly?”, he asked, and watched the quick arching of a single brow on his mate's forehead. Hannibal dropped his hands and walked quick steps towards the bed, and as he sank down on the edge besides Will's outstretched body, his fingers came to stroke at the curls of his Omega. A reward, a relief.

The Alpha sighed as Will stretched his neck, allowing the fingers to dig deeper against his muscles. “It makes that together, we become one perfect, completed being,” he uttered, and Will huffed against his arms as he closed his eyes under the steady fingers that worked the back of his neck. “Yes, so you keep saying,” he said, pressing his lips against his own arms. “But what does that entail? What would happen to us, would we bond?”

_Would we bond._ Hannibal noticed that, because the finger stopped circling on his skin. But his mate stayed seated as Will lifted his head, and arched his neck to look at him. He met steady, amber eyes. The porcelain mask. “You know of the biting ritual, performed during mating,” Hannibal said, reaching rough fingers around Will's neck to nudge his mate beneath his chin. The Omega swallowed against the dominant touch. “Yes,” he shivered, “you would bite me on the throat.”

Hannibal hummed, as his fingers slid slightly lower over the warm flesh, and stroked over an almost undetectable swelling beneath very sensitive skin. “This little gland, right here,” he said, and Will's breath stuttered in a whimper as he trembled helplessly against the stroking fingertips. The feeling reached deep between his thighs, through his pelvis, up his spine, like a cloud of milk spreading in hot, black tea. “Yes,” he all but panted, helplessly lost against the urge to expose his throat further by lifting his neck. But Hannibal released him with careful fingers before he pushed his weight back unto his knees again, and rose from the bed. 

Will blinked as he felt the mattress bouncing upwards, and turned his head with a puzzled frown that smoothed out the moment his Alpha came back into his vision. Hannibal surprised him by seating himself on the floor, his back against the mattress, by the head of the bed. Like this, Will could see him without having to strain his muscles, while still being close enough to touch. Casually thoughtful. Inelegantly normal. Will chuckled at the sight of his Alpha, legs bent and hands on his knees, the closest he could get to Will, see him, without burdening him. 

Hannibal's pupils widened as he reached for Will's hand, folded out his fingers and pressed them against his own throat, similar to where he had just touched Will. “And you, me,” he said, and Will felt the Alpha twitch when he pushed the hint of a surprised nail against the gland beneath the skin. This was unexpected. “I would bite you, too?”, he asked, and felt his own eyes widening at the idea of his teeth in Hannibal's neck. _Oh._ He had to swallow down the enthusiasm his body showed to the image, as a warm flush crept under his skin.

“Of course,” Hannibal said, blinking his amber eyes until they turned a curious coffee brown. “A one-sided bond is most old-fashioned.” Will's lips opened and closed as he felt and eyed the warm skin on his Alpha's throat. He tied to grasp what Hannibal was telling him beyond the arousal that pulled on him like a tight, elastic band. One-sided bond? He remembered hearing that. And he remembered where he'd heard it. “The Dragon mentioned it to me,” he choked, eyebrows knitting on his forehead. “But I don't...”

Will shook his head in bewilderment, and Hannibal pursed his lips. Dissatisfied confusion. “Were you not informed?”, he asked him, critically annoyed. “Did the prison doctor not tell you about this?” 

Will inhaled as he rattled his brain, but there was nothing in there that resembled such details. Hammings had told him about bonding, but Will was ashamed to admit he had been quick to dismiss it. Bites, one- or two-sided bonds, none of that had been discussed in the little, white office. None of it had been considered an option.

“No,” he said, wetting his lips as Hannibal's eyes flashed gold, and the glint of sharp teeth shone behind rosy lips. “Well, perhaps the old doctor is more of a traditionalist at heart,” the Alpha spoke, a trickle of venom from his tongue, and Will bit his lip, fighting a grimace at his mate's dramatic pause. “Tell me,” Will bit, and watched sparks of pleasure shoot like stars through the golden eyes, before Hannibal turned his head towards him. He enjoyed Will's frustration, his helplessness and dependence. The power, the importance, the game of teacher and student. Doctor and patient. The Omega was certain that would never stop.

Hannibal's mouth twitched when Will lips pulled up over his teeth with impatience. “In certain areas and societies it was, and still is, popular for Alphas to bite their Omegas without allowing them to bond with the Alpha in return,” he said, matter-of-factly. “This way, the Alpha is able to control and manipulate his mate into full submission.” Hannibal folded his hand atop his knees, and Will's eyes widened beneath low brows. The Alpha briefly licked his lips before he continued. “A bond provides access to someone's deepest fears, dreams and needs.” Eyes sparkled, gold in honey. “A one-sided bond is a very powerful tool for utmost control of your partner.” Will swallowed when Hannibal's pupils blew wider and his lips stretched. “A two-sided bond, however, establishes a very powerful connection between Alpha and Omega.” Their eyes touched hard, and Will stuttered a breath. “The most powerful, open connection one could establish, in a lifetime.” Hannibal's lips pushed further into a smile. Hope and warm wishfulness. 

And Will could only press his chin deeper into his own arms as he looked back and felt helpless need washing over him like warm oil. _Fuck._ “So technically...”, he broke the moment, clearing his throat, “...you could... bite me now and force me into a one-sided bond.” Will's teeth pulled restlessly at his own lips as he blinked at his mate. Nerves and desire fighting for leadership below his lungs. “Technically, yes,” Hannibal confirmed with a tilt of his head, which made Will's insides clench tightly around the answer. Hannibal's eyes never wavered, and Will couldn't drop his from the golden gaze. Warm and hypnotizing, like quicksand made of honey. “It's not easily accomplished without the mate's consent, but it certainly has been done.” 

Will swallowed back the flow of saliva that streamed from the back of his tongue. Of course it had been done. The world was a sickening place, where everything thinkable had been touched and damaged, at least once. Will knew that. 

So what if Hannibal did it? What if he forced it on him? Will took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes at the vision it brought him. He would end up mentally shackled to the Alpha, wearing the bond as a ball and chain. Prison, inside prison. He would resemble a 50's housewife, bringing her husband slippers and a newspaper every morning. Hannibal was the master of puppets, and this scenario would destroy his identity, his control, everything he had always held on to like a lifeline. 

“Have you considered it?”, he asked, curious, but with a pinch of trepidation. This was Hannibal. Hannibal considered _everything_. The Alpha's lips jerked at the question, as if the idea merely amused him. “I am not suicidal, Will,” he teased, flashing fangs beneath his lips. “But I am hopeful.” Will scoffed a chuckle as he bit his lip with sharp teeth, and lowered his eyes to his arms. Hopeful. As long as there was hope for a bond...

And was if there was none? What would happen then?

“What happens when a double bond is complete?”, Will asked, resting his head in his hands as he propped up his elbows. The Alpha watched him with bottomless eyes, catching the light like fire on water. “My guess is as good as yours,” he said with a little jerk from his shoulders and surprising Will with the oddly human response. Hannibal didn't know. “Really?”, he asked, a skeptical eyebrow providing the question-mark. Hannibal's eyes sparkled sweet honey, as he slid them over Will's face. “I have never experienced it.”

The honesty was baffling, and Will stared at the Alpha for a silent moment where Hannibal's lips tugged wider under the Omega's scrutinizing eyes. “I have researched many sources on the topic, but in reality, it is a different experience for every couple.” Hannibal's eyes flashed briefly but heavily to Will's lips, who unconsciously wet them with the tip of his tongue. “The strength of the connection, the character, the compatibility...”, the Alpha continued, letting his elbows rest against his knees as his eyes stayed deep and full on Will. “But my best guess is that it has a lot to do with being perfectly attuned to each other's well-being, emotions and needs.”

Will felt his mouth parting on its own accord, as a deep breath rolled over his moist lips. He was disgustingly predictable, these days. “Needs?”, he croaked, as his eyes fanned out Hannibal's lashes. Fuck. For the first time in his life, he was that teenage boy, where a single word could make him cream his pants and buckle his knees. “In _whatever_ form,” Hannibal replied, squinting his eyes to mock Will's thoughts without a single word necessary. He knew. The Omega lowered his head back on his arms with a frown, cheeks flushed and heated as looked up through his curly fringe.

His Alpha eyed him with open adoration that did nothing for the blush that curled over Will's nose. “Desire, hunger, safety...”, Hannibal trailed off, eyes on his mate's ocean gaze, as his golden stare became hazy and thick like raw honey. Will huffed, and returned the Alpha's mockery with a sly smile around his small fangs. Eyes big, lips parted, ears pink. 

Hannibal loved to play, loved to mock, loved to make him fluster and stutter. But Will had never been an easy prey. He might feel like the teenage schoolboy, but at heart, he was still that mongoose under the house. He'd forever have teeth and courage when snakes slithered by. 

“So,” he said, frowning stubbornly around a swallow. “If I needed to take a piss, you would need to go, too?”, and he watched Hannibal's eyes narrowing, a flinch around his nose, as Will destroyed his attempt to romanticize the terrifying. “No,” Hannibal said, distaste open on his features as he looked away from Will's pointed stare. “...but I suppose I would know about your need to go.” 

Will stretched out his limbs out as the Alpha pushed himself gracefully back onto his feet. “No need to be crude, Will,” he scolded the Omega from over his shoulder, as he walked back to the abandoned bookcase. A punishment for bad behavior. Ungracefulness was not something Hannibal partook in, after all. But his steps were light, and his shoulders low. Will knew it was all game, no prize. No penalty.

Maybe not anymore. But there had been, once. 

“Where was I to tell _you_ that when you sliced off Abigail's ear and stuffed it down my throat?”, Will retorted, a sudden sharpness to his tone he hadn't meant to add, but that rose from the depths of his core nonetheless. Will had wanted to spar, as they always did so well. But suddenly, his throat was dry with a claiming, raw sadness.

Hannibal tensed, and the atmosphere swirled thicker between them as he turned his head and showed Will a hint of lion eyes. Pain; as bright in his mate as within himself. _Fuck._ The Omega flashed his eyes down as he swallowed back bile from his throat. 

The Alpha had done that to him, when he had been at his most vulnerable. Will remembered it. The taste, the smell, the nausea that stayed with him for days after, and every time he thought of it, still. And the blinding, sickening fear that the girl he had considered his family, was dead, because of him. He killed her. He ate her... He had almost believed it. 

Hannibal had wanted him to believe. 

Hannibal had blinded him. 

It was the most terrifying thing that he had ever experienced. That, and the feeling of her blood streaming over his fingers as he held her throat, and watched all life leave her eyes. She bled out on Hannibal's kitchen floor, right beside him. It had been worse than the knife and the hospital, the prison and that fucking bone-saw. 

He'd failed to save the girl from the monster.

Hannibal had already groomed him just right to fit inside his own-made family, where Abigail would have served as the perfect daughter that glued them together. Will didn't need to present to be his, because Hannibal liked to play his own God. He would have kneaded her into the perfect child, attached, depended and devoted entirely to her Alpha father that loved her, that doted on her, that killed for her, and would have had her killing in return. A father, like her first one, but instead of learning the skills of a hunter, she would have been taught the ways of a true predator. 

It would have been a blood bond she couldn't have separated from, and live. And Will would have loved her too much to leave them. Will would have let it happen, would have watched it unfold, would have joined them, would have loved it more than he would have been willing to admit. Will wouldn't have saved her then, as he couldn't save her in Hannibal's kitchen.

Will couldn't save her from the monster, because he belonged to him. He, too, was that monster.

“If we were bonded, you would understand,” Hannibal said, his voice tight but controlled, as his eyes stared, hard as clumps of dried up dirt. Will huffed through his nose, and gently started to pull himself up on the bed. “You don't know that. You just told me you didn't,” he sneered, and he watched the Alpha's hands twitch with restraint. 

For a brief second he felt a shiver of fear, wondering if the Alpha wanted to hurt him. But he watched the tight eyes that shimmered unshielded with both pain and worry, and he knew Hannibal wanted to help him get up, rather than to see him struggle. 

He didn't, though. Hannibal had standards.

Will sat up with a wince that would have stretched wider only yesterday. “There are things I fear to understand,” he spoke honestly, running a hand through the back of his curls. He felt Hannibal's eyes on him, and kept his gaze down as he bit the inside of his lip. How could he want to understand how Hannibal would look at that girl, loving her, cherishing her, before taking her ear, and then her life? Not to punish her. To punish Will. 

Because Will cared for her too.

Now that he was an Omega, he felt the reasons, the inner dialogue, had changed. He understood more, and he understood better, but there were still things he didn't want to touch with a primitive brain. Not her death. 

“Do you fear you will enjoy them?”, Hannibal asked him, his voice clean of any color, as Will looked up to see his mate taking a seat at the dinner table. The chair scraped the wood, and the Alpha crossed his legs. “What if I despise them?”, Will shot back, and watched his mate's features twitch into curiosity. “You're afraid to disappoint me?”, Hannibal asked, and Will swallowed, digging fingers into the edge of the bed. 

“I'm afraid of either one,” he admitted, and rolled his bottom lip between his teeth. Either to despise or to enjoy the things Hannibal had dedicated his life to. He couldn't win. He was either a monster, or he wouldn't be able to live comfortably with his own mate. Both were devastating. 

He rubbed a hand across his face as his nails started to pinch the ends of the stitches in his cheek. A nervous gesture that was quickly terminated by a cleared throat, and a disapproving glare from Hannibal that simply screamed _'infections'_. 

Will sighed, and folded his hands together in his lap as he hunched his shoulders. “I'm afraid to get to know myself so bluntly through someone else,” he said, sucking on his cheek as he shuffled his restless feet. What if a bond showed him something about himself he didn't want to know? And how would he know what truly belonged to _him_? As an empath, it had been an eternal struggle to figure out what belonged to him, and what lay beyond. If their minds touched, how would he know where he ended? 

Hannibal hummed, and Will looked up to see him nod. “You've hid and lied your entire life. It is no surprise,” his Alpha said, riding along the wave of Will's thoughts, with frightening effortlessness. “But your final reason to lie walked out the door only hours ago.” Hannibal's eyes flashed to said door, and Will felt his skin tightening in goosebumps. Molly. His last and only connection to society. His only reason to try and fit into the world. 

The Alpha leaned back into his chair and crossed his ankles, enjoying the regained freedom. “There's only you, and me,” he said, and his eyes stroked a hard stripe up, from toes to ears, openly possessive and pleasantly buzzing with all the possibilities that had opened before them. 

Will placed his bare feet against the floor, and wriggled his toes against the wood that felt almost warm and alive under his touch. “Weren't we a zero sum game, once upon a time?”, he asked hoarsely, and glancing up through his lashes as Hannibal's back straightened with a purse of his lips.

“Are we still, you feel?”, he asked the Omega with intense gold around the wide pupil, an honest lick of curiosity between the open rejection of the words. Will could see the hardness in the lines of his face, and wanted badly to reach out and soothe them away with his fingers. Instead he shrugged, and placed his heels firmly against the wooden floor. “I can't know all of you,” he said, breathing in deep. “And you can't know all of me.”

The Alpha stared at him, as if trying to push their minds together. “We can,” he almost whispered, allowing his eyes to brush the Omega's throat. “We could.” 

Will huffed, mindlessly rubbing two fingers over the little gland beneath his flesh and felt his skin vibrating with excitement at the idea. It was sensitive, always, around Hannibal. “What if we bond...”, he started, dramatically gesturing with his hands, “and your mind turns out to be something entirely worse than what you've shown me, disguised by smoke and suits and...” He swallowed, as ocean eyes traveled up Hannibal's muscular calves and thighs, over the bulge of his crotch and up his belly, his chest, his deep, golden eyes, “...nice hair,” he finished weakly, his face heating at his own obvious struggle. But the Alpha's eyes remained dark, and Will sighed deeply into his own shoulder. “What if I don't fit? What if I can't?”

It was an honest fear, and Will considered it a fair one. Bonding with Hannibal, and therefore having access to Hannibal's mind, must be a twisted, disturbing place to inhabit. He had seen so many things already that he truly wished he never had. What if the bond brought them close enough for Will to fear the Alpha? What if he lost himself within his mate? What if he enjoyed it? And the circle went 'round and 'round, again.

“What are you afraid to find, Will?”, Hannibal asked him, observing the shifting gaze of his Omega, lost on the inside, with lines of worry etched into his skin. Will's fear kneaded tightly in his belly as he answered; “Beverly.” Red eyes flashed back to his mate. “Abigail.” Will inhaled sharply between his teeth. “Myself.”

Will watched golden eyes turn maroon as Hannibal crossed his legs, and folded his hands on his lap. The therapist. 

“You don't trust me to tell you we have both evolved towards each other?”, the Alpha asked – and yes, the voice was there too. The one he used when he was prying your brain open with nothing but words and eyes, from an opposite chair. 

Will only looked at him through his hair, and Hannibal pressed his lips together. “It is my belief that the gap that was once enough to separate us, has closed in on itself,” the Alpha said, careful around the words that left his lips. 

Will closed his eyes, and behind the lids he saw that tear through the earth, a rip through its core, where boiling lava sizzled and spat below. Something had separated them then, and his presentation as an Omega, time, and their strengthening bond had intertwined them like poison ivy in spring. But not all that had separated them then, had ceased to exist today.

He breathed out through his lips as he dipped his head, and ran a hand through the curls on the back of his neck. “Your beliefs are not always mine,” he answered, not looking up to catch the insisting, golden stare he felt prickling on his skin. He was addicted to those eyes, but meeting them often caused his mind to wonder from the task at hand. Conversation. Necessary conversation.

“In this moment, I'm afraid to pledge myself to you,” he said, knowing his words were painful when he felt them puncture his own insides with a cruel little twist of a sharp, thick needle. He didn't want this. He didn't want to be afraid. But Will had faced the world with one arm around himself all his life. Shielding, careful, cautious – and Hannibal was the full eclipse to the world's summer sun. Will knew it was schematic behavior that was rooted too deeply to just stop gnawing. Hannibal was hard to trust.

“There are still some obstacles for me to overcome,” he pushed through his lips, his voice tight and his words soft, “before we could ever bond.” His eyes finally dragged back up, heavily, to find Hannibal looking at him with lost wonder. Lips parted, eyebrows low, both upset and intrigued by yet another puzzle. Yet another game for him to excel at, and win the well-earned prize at the end. 

Will.

He wanted to stop being angry about things from the past. He wanted to sleep soundly beside his mate without ever wondering what secrets crawled around inside the Alpha's head. To know they belonged on the same side. 

He wanted to look into the future, and see a life they both wanted to live, together. Not one where Hannibal expected him to adapt to whatever he wanted. Not even one where Will expected for Hannibal to adapt to him. Something shared, whatever that would be. 

And before they could bond, he wanted to know exactly what that _'whatever'_ entailed. He wanted to know what he wanted, and but not because Hannibal told him. He wanted to know, because he knew himself well enough to understand. After years of pretending to be someone else, he had lost that vital part that knew what he wanted to move towards.

He watched the Alpha bite his bottom lip, as his eyes narrowed in contemplation. Was he listening? Was he thinking of a way to help Will find what he was looking for? Or was he thinking of a way to twist and pinch until Will would agree to a bond, because he had been manipulated into believing it was the right decision? It was the core, the root, the underlying heart of the fear that was the barrier between them. Will didn't know. Will didn't trust him. 

“I don't want to bond, expecting things to solve themselves,” he said, honestly. Part of him wanted that bond, so much it screamed inside of him. The beast wanted the bond, and he, Will, he was so weak for the man and the Alpha, there was barely enough sense in him left to want anything else.

But there was that stubborn streak that he had clung to all his life, whenever he was deserted, whenever his heart had been stomped on by a loved one, a parent, a friend. It was the little piece inside him that told him to hold on, to think, to put mind over heart and sense over... love. “Because, what if they don't?”, his fingers dug into his knees as he watched Hannibal's hands clenching tightly in his lap.

The Alpha looked at him, and the clock ticked away, as if ready to start painting him on a canvas. Then, he cocked his head, and blinked contemplatively at the Omega. “You want to open that hidden door inside yourself, and see if it leads to the same room as mine,” he said, deliberate, as his index fingers stretched and pressed together. Will almost wondered if he would be billed for this session. “Yes,” he answered breathlessly, but his eyes narrowed as he watched the corners of Hannibal's mouth twitch up, almost of their own accord.

“What?”, he fired quickly, but the Alpha's smile only widened as he let his leg bounce lightly on his knee as he said:

“I'd better start tidying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello loveliest!! Hope you enjoyed this one! ^.^ Will is a difficult boy.....fucking suprise!!
> 
> Now, sometimes people mention certain things to me that they really like to read about, or tell me they enjoyed something in particular (Example; I would really like to read that Hannibal's thumb is bigger than his big toe....it drives me wild!). I always write those things down on my list and try to include stuff like that in the story. 
> 
> ONLY when it works/fits with the story, I add it to a chapter, but little things like a certain way of cuddling, the way they have sex, words they use, kinks, emotions they express, needs....stuff like that, I can always try to fit in. 
> 
> So, you can always add something you like in a comment, and I will put it on my list! I have done it many times before, and since I still have quite a few chapters for this story coming up, feel free to inspire me with whatever you like. No promises, but I try! (Don't be embarrassed btw, seriously, have you seen my stuff? It has all kinds of sex things in it! :-O).
> 
> NOW, what I CAN'T do is stuff like this: 
> 
> Hi, yeah, I would really like Will to go to Jack and punch him in the face and then Jack calls Molly to tell on him and Molly gets all mad and calls Hannibal and than Hannibal spanks Will for being a bad boy.
> 
> (Actually, you totally can! I'm just not going to change the storyline :-P)
> 
> You CAN tell me you like spanking. Or that you like violent Will XD
> 
> Love you all!


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When you are properly healed, we should discuss the next step,” she said, pushing the words hard from beneath her ribs, as her vision stayed away from the Alpha at the table. Will's teeth clenched inside his mouth. The next step. The poking finger on a sore spot. Everyone wanted to discuss _the next step._
> 
> He stared back at Alana, eyes narrowed, and a frown around his eyes that she copied with her perfectly sculptured eyebrows. “Are you planning on staying here?”, she asked, her voice neutral with colored edges, as her eyes made a loop around his features.
> 
> It never ended. 
> 
> No, he didn't plan on staying here. No. 
> 
> Not at all.

“Remarkable,” Doctor Hammings breathed as he slid his old, latex fingers over Will's naked back. The Omega tried not to twitch under the undesirable touch on his skin, but he held himself still; eyes closed, muscles slack and listening to the low, warning growl that rumbled from Hannibal's belly. 

“Only 24 hours, and look – at – this.”

The Doctor's mumbling did not seem to be directed at anyone in particular, and Will did not feel so inclined to grace him with a response. He knew his back looked better than it had yesterday. He could feel the heat of his skin had subsided, and the raw edges of his cuts were not as sensitive against the sharp thread of the stitches. He was healing quickly, edging on miraculous, as his body was molding him back into shape with so little effort, when it had hurt him to merely blink his eyelids not a full two days before.

“You were on the brink of death, not 48 hours ago,” Hammings idly reminded him, “but your thorough reunion has had a most astonishing effect on your health.” His voice sounded amazed, with a pinch of enjoyment that had Will's jaws tighten against his arms, as his face heated with the memory. _Oh._

_That._

He had been in such critical condition when they had wheeled him in, but the moment he was back with his Alpha, who bred his unconscious form like a rutting animal, Will had pulled his foot from the grave and emerged fresh as a blushing daisy.

_God._

He hadn't even stopped to think how their _joining_ would have been observed and perceived by the staff; security, medical, Alana... the video booth must have been crowded that day. This was the only cell with more than one individual, and plenty of activity. Will bit sharp teeth into his lips as he pushed his temple hard against the mattress. They must have caught many eyes in the facility by now.

Hannibal's steady rumble kept him from sinking away too deep into his memories, but the idea of his noble mate having to fuck him back to consciousness while the world watched, made Will grimace deep around his eyes. Uneasy shame burned hot in his chest as his imagination filled in the lines of what that monitor would have showed of his and Hannibal's _assembly._

_Fuck_ , he hated the exposure, just where he was at his most vulnerable. Open to whomever wished to look down on him, or pity him, or think he was doing something wrong. Something awful. Will's nails pushed into the sheets, as damp, sterile cloth dabbed against his stitched back. The superficial need to blend in, to stay away from judgment and attention was still so thick on his skin, and he felt the disgrace for both himself and his mate. Remorse for Hannibal's integrity. 

Which was ridiculous.

Will's lips stretched against his arms, where his chin rested on the joints of his wrists. Hannibal might be noble, but there was a highly twisted streak to that dignity. He did not feel shame or discomfort for something other people deemed inappropriate or odd. He only felt undignified by whatever the circumstances inflicted on him with degradation, and without redemption.  
He was certainly not without pride. Not without dignity. Not without self-awareness. But shame...

Will doubted Hannibal had ever had that dream where he was in front of the class, and discovered he was naked. And if he did, he would probably prance around the school with his head held high. Will smiled against his arm, keeping his eyes closed as Hammings loosened some of the thread on his flesh. Not that anyone would laugh at a naked form like Hannibal's. They would all be too hypnotized to ridicule a form that deserved only admiration.

Will sniffed, pushing the bubble of amusement below his belly. Maybe Hannibal's nightmare would be about standing in front of that class, and realizing he didn't know the right answer to the question. Maybe it contained scolding teachers trying to educate his brilliant mind with outdated books and boring lectures. Will's curls fell into his closed eyes. He could easily envision the Alpha as a little boy wearing a school uniform, complete with knee socks and suspenders. Confidently but quietly traveling through the hallways, perfectly postured and exquisitely mannered, as he disemboweled rude classmates and staff with a quick tug of a knife from his backpack, before eating their organs as lunch meat in the cafeteria. 

Will swallowed down a chuckle, trying to shake the little schoolboy image from his mind as Hammings worked along his stitches. “If you keep healing at this rate, these will be ready to be taken out tomorrow,” the old man said, and Will blinked as he pushed his head from his arms. “Oh.” Tomorrow? He was mortally wounded, yesterday. Those cuts had shredded his back to a point where the Angel-maker would have approved.

“That _is_ fast,” he mumbled, and felt a flutter pull inside his belly. Hannibal's rumble turned to a purr, as Will flashed his eyes over his shoulder. Hannibal. Shackled and held at gunpoint, he looked positively content as he eyed Will warmly with liquid gold. The Omega looked at his mate through heavy-lidded eyes before he dropped his head back on his arms. This was good news. _Excellent_ news. Fuck, how he would love to be able to lie on his back again or sit in a chair, fold their bodies together, spoon, front to back, or to be able to look at Hannibal as they...

Will's teeth sank into the inside of his cheek. _Fucked?_ He winced against his own arms. That word was too menial for a man like Hannibal. That wasn't everything it was. Bred? Mated? Had sex? Made love?

_Love._

Will allowed himself to drift to the porch of his palace, where he brushed a hand over his Omega's fur. In calm, the wolf was always settled on the wooden deck, guarding the door. And though he was lying down on his belly, his ears remained up, even when his eyes were closed. 

Will watched the empty rocking chair beside the Omega, and smiled at the exfoliated piece of wooden furniture. That chair... His father used to have one exactly like it, that Will had not been allowed to use as a boy. Dad used to sit in it after a hard day's work, smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap beer as he watched the sun set behind the horizon. They had moved after fourteen months of living in that house, and the chair was left behind. Will had never forgotten it.

Now, it was his.

He sank into the chair that wiggled beneath his weight, before he settled himself on that chipped, white paint. Mating, that was what it had been in the beginning of his heat. Animals mating. But it wasn't like that anymore. It was intimate, it was human. It was a deep, bleeding connection that spilled and flowed between them...

“Is this painful, Mister Graham?” Will almost keeled out of his chair when an outside voice pulled him back hard and loud from his safe mind. The mattress appeared beneath him like an explosion, and his opened mouth against the bed was damp with drool. 

“Mister Graham?”, Hammings' voice sounded from behind him, and Will shook his head clear of his daydreams that left his toes tingling and his ears red. He felt fingers pushing on his back, digging deep into his damaged tissue. “No. Not really,” he answered a little bewildered, and willed himself to calm, cool down. What if Hannibal smelled arousal, and thought he was getting turned on from the old man's clinical touches? _Jesus, no._

“Extraordinary,” Hammings said, digging latex fingers all around the rim of the raw flesh. Deeper, harder, and Will winced when the Doctor touched a spot right over the curve of his spine. “Maybe a little...”, he mumbled sourly, and the rumble from the Alpha peaked behind him. Will's heart rate sped at the sound, but before he could try and turn to look at his mate again, Hammings took his touch away, and snapped his gloves off his hands. 

“Even for a Per mutua nexis bond...”, he started, audibly pleased. “Your Alpha has been treating you well, mister Graham. Your recovery is unseen.” The bed bounced back at the Doctor's lifting weight, and Will quickly sat himself up, eyes solid on his shackled mate, held steady by guns at his head, his throat, his heart.

Gold flashed calmly, as Hannibal kept himself perfectly stoic and openly pleasant. The cat, stretched out in the summer sun. Control, even when he was the only one here that seemed to be completely without it. 

“By _you_ ,” Will grumbled to the Doctor, as he pushed his arms back into the sleeves of his suit and felt the cotton chafing his sensitive skin. Hammings smiled at his mocking, moody words. “And I have seen my share,” he said, rather cheerfully as he put away his supplies, and folded his sleeves back over his wrists. 

“Whatever it is you do, keep it up.” The wrinkly, blue eyes settled briefly on Hannibal, before he nodded at both men, “Mister Graham, Doctor Lecter,” and proceeded his exit out the door. 

A less than subtle sigh escaped the Omega as he crossed eyes with his still bounded mate, who seemed to drift on a cloud above the prison as a guard came to key open his restraints. Behind that guard, Dennis waved at him, and Will felt kind enough to hold up his own hand in response, offering a small smile that was rewarded by a shining, white beam. Dennis wasn't much younger than Will, but to the Omega, he was just a boy. Way in over his head.

It was done. Hannibal was uncuffed and freed of the red dots that aimed for his vitals, and the group of five men stepped through the heavy door. But before it could fall into the many locks behind them, someone pushed through the huddled bodies of security guards and stepped behind the wall of glass: 

“Will.”

It was Alana.

He sighed as he stood up from the bed, surprisingly smoother than yesterday, and buttoned up his suit with unhasty fingers before he let their eyes meet. “Alana,” he acknowledged her with a nod that she returned. Hannibal didn't look at their visitor, but his eyes stroked Will's with promises as he moved past his mate towards the bookcase. He wasn't staying for the talk. 

_Oh._

Will followed him with his gaze, and watched the Alpha's nonchalant fingers brush over the red marks on his freed wrists, before he took a thick, old-looking book from the top shelf and seated himself at the table. Hannibal was giving him space. Independence. No fingers pushing on his back. 

Something Will had asked him for, if not in so many words.

“I'm glad to hear you're healing well,” Alana spoke, her suit a navy blue, and her dress shirt maroon with pumps to match. Her dark hair was pinned back, and Will noticed her sky blue eyes started to turn a dusty gray. She was tired. She was frightened. Their reunion was eating away at her. 

“Yeah,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. She knew, because she'd heard them. She had watched the conversation take place behind a monitor, which left a bad taste in Will's mouth. If she'd wanted to hear, why hadn't she just come? Why hadn't she just asked? “Me too.”

She looked at him with eyes that were stern, by fabrication. Alana was the good, warm girl. Top grades, always willing to help and look after others. Alana wanted to be the heroine, the mother, the friend, but her fears, her intelligent, introvert mind and prejudice had been mixed with both trauma, money and power, which had caused her to fall on the other side of the line. Alana was not a good, warm girl, because she couldn't afford to be any longer. Now she was a hard, frightened woman, with too much blurring her vision to think and feel like that embracing, encouraging psychiatrist she had once been.

She had lost herself, just where Will had found himself, and it made Will feel the pity she had always directed at him, for her. Under the suits and the pumps, Alana was that warm, scared little girl, with too much to lose, and too many to lose it to.

She licked uncomfortably over red painted lips. “I hope you are doing well, otherwise, too,” she said, and Will almost smiled at the struggle. She knew who she wanted to be, but she couldn't fit her intentions and emotions within her job, or her heart. She was lost. “Yesterday's visit must have been difficult.” 

Will pushed his lips together. “I'm well,” he said, as he squeezed his arms tighter around his body. She looked at him; the pitiful stray in the pouring rain. “It was difficult,” he added, suppressing a flinch as he quickly looked down at his feet. He could feel her blue eyes slide over him, as he could feel _his_ golden eyes gnawing at the back of his neck.

Alana nodded, before her gaze flashed briefly over his shoulder. Hannibal was paying her no mind, because her eyes made it back, undisturbed. “I understand,” she swallowed, wiped an unusual loose strand from her face and took a deep breath between those red, shining lips. She was on edge.

She hadn't come here to inform about his wellbeing. Not just.

“When you are properly healed, we should discuss the next step,” she said, pushing the words hard from beneath her ribs, as her vision stayed away from the Alpha at the table. Will's teeth clenched inside his mouth. The next step. The poking finger on a sore spot. Everyone wanted to discuss _the next step._

He stared back at Alana, eyes narrowed, and a frown around his eyes that she copied with her perfectly sculptured eyebrows. “Are you planning on staying here?”, she asked, her voice neutral with colored edges, as her eyes made a loop around his features.

It never ended. 

No, he didn't plan on staying here. No. Not at all.

Because Hannibal would break them out, and they would leave, together. They would live a life, far away from here. Secluded. There would be nature, with the touch of elegance that Hannibal craved. There would be music and art and fishing and dogs.

_That_ was what he was planning.

But he wouldn't tell Alana that.

“I don't know,” he answered her, without looking back at the Alpha he felt poking a hole in his back, even when those amber eyes were probably glued to the page of his book. There was a lot of truth to his words; he didn't know when or if they would take that next step, because Hannibal had made one condition quite clear: they would have to bond, before he would leave the cell. 

Alana rubbed her hands as her eyes flashed up. Collecting a phrase she had probably rehearsed many times, just for this moment. “Perhaps we could find you a place nearby,” she said. “You could find a job, make regular visits.” 

Will heard a page being turned behind him as he widened his eyes at the suggestion. No. No. No no. That was not right. Picking up his life without Hannibal? Visiting him, calling him, writing letters... the lonely lover of an inmate with life imprisonment? No. 

She watched his stunned silence, before she added a repressed: “Or you could stay here.” Her lips pursed, a sour taste. “But I won't be granting you a free pass to simply walk in and out as you please.” 

Will tensed under her words. _Oh._ She wouldn't allow him to leave. If he stayed, he was her prisoner. He looked at her, and watched her tilt her chin up. Feigned confidence. “It's too dangerous, for everyone involved, to use this cell as a walk-in apartment.” 

And she was right. Alana breathed in deep as Will moved his lips around a proper sound. Of course she was right. But what she was offering was not enough. Imprisonment, or sleeping alone every night. Alana watched his bewilderment. “Exceptions are submittable, but if you decide to stay, you stay,” she said, red nails pushing into the sleeves of her suit. “But if you pick up your life, I'll allow you daily visits, and the right to enter the cell twice a week for a few hours.”

Will breathed in deep, listening to the silence behind his back, as Alana shuffled her heel against the floor. “Doctor Hammings assured me that would suffice, for any physical needs between you,” she said, her face catching heat as she pushed down the collar of her jacket.

“Just... think about it.”

**

Will did think about it.

“Where are you?”, Hannibal nudged carefully through the ball of tangled chaos in Will's head. They were at the dining table, and the Alpha had continued reading his book, which was where he had buried his nose for twenty silent minutes. Will had sat across from him with his head on his arms, a common place for him to rest it these days, and stared at every line and wave of Hannibal's physique as the man read undisturbed through his edition of _The New Encyclopedia of the Opera_ , by David Ewen, which Will doubted was indeed all that _'new'_.

Alana had left them in silence, and where Will had expected Hannibal to take the lead in strategic conversation, he had simply kissed Will on the back of his neck, and told him to find a quiet moment in the ensnared disarray that was his unfocused, unsettled mind. He had pushed out a chair for his mate, and set an example by continuing his quiet read, while Will had been a useless sack of bones on the opposite side of the table. 

He thought about asking Hannibal to read to him, or to climb into the bigger man's lap and beg to be held. He considered working his fingers through Hannibal's hair, placing lips right above his collar, and breathing against the Alpha's ear until his mate would bend him over the table at yet another attempt to break it.

But Will didn't move. He was stuck inside his own, frozen mind that had all these loose threads, twisted and knotted together, without a destination. He couldn't go. He couldn't stay. He couldn't bond, because it was the best left option.

That was hardly footing for the start of a life together.

“Mmmm?”, he replied, lifting his head off his arms with a flutter of his lashes. Fighting to bring himself back out as he met Hannibal's soft eyes, peeking at him from over his book. Pale eyebrows rose, as Will shook the dust from his brain. “I'm here,” he said, pushed hands through his hair and he sat up as straight as he could manage without connecting with the backrest. His elbows were on the table as he rubbed two fingers over his eyes. “I'm just thinking.”

Will waved a hand, as if the unavoidable follow-up question was already bugging him like a buzzing fly. “Don't ask.” There was no word to define what it was he was thinking about. The future, the past, today, tomorrow... And he wasn't ready for those questions. He wasn't ready for prying and steering and nudging, not from anybody. 

Hannibal knew this, and even appeared to respect it. But Will was not certain he understood that even though he sent his wife away, that didn't mean he could fully jump into the deep, black ocean that was Hannibal, with his arms wide and his eyes closed.

There were sharks in those waters. He had the scars to prove it.

“If we were bonded, I wouldn't have to ask,” Hannibal said, an air of amusement around the way he crinkled his nose behind his book, and Will narrowed his eyes at the Alpha. Back to _this_? “You don't have to now, either,” Will countered, a hint of sharpness to his words that had Hannibal close his book with careful fingers, as he placed it to the side, and folded his hands on the tabletop.

“Will,” he started, and the Omega realized he was holding his breath, before releasing it with a long, deep sigh. Hannibal leaned a little closer, and Will could almost feel himself pulling forward. “Alana's rules are not valid,” the Alpha said, his voice a soft, soothing stroke of distortion and honey. “She cannot make such demands, just because she wants things to be a certain way.” His voice was vocal pleasure, his eyes were light, and Will felt clouds of dust falling from his shoulders as he drifted on the carefree attitude of his mate. _God_ , he needed that. He needed to gently ride along on those waves, and relieve the weight of the rocks on his back by the mass of the pushing water.

Alana had no right to keep them apart, Will had no doubt it was true. Hannibal knew everything from law, to art, to bloody accounting. “Legally, she has no reason to keep you out, or keep you in,” the Alpha spoke calmly, as he tilted his head to the side. Every move was deliberate. Everything served a purpose. In this moment, the purpose was to calm Will, but the Omega knew the first layer was never the only one. He could almost feel the two metaphorical fingers on his collarbone. 

“We are mates, but we are not bonded, and therefore...”, Hannibal continued to make his case, but Will waved his words away with an impatient gesture. “No.” It didn't matter what they could do. What mattered was what they _wanted_ to do. They could walk out and never look back, but both of them had chosen not to make things as easy as that. Alana's stupid rules and ideas were paper thin, but Hannibal's stubborn head and Will's morality and trauma stood strong as brick houses.

“It just got me thinking about...”, Will sighed as he let his eyes glide over the gray, dull tabletop. “...all of this.” He shrugged his shoulders as his fingers grabbed hold of his thumb, in an attempt to keep his awkward hands busy. “Define _this_ ,” Hannibal said, and Will flashed his eyes up to the steady image of his Alpha. Still and strong, with hands that didn't fidget, and eyes that didn't wander like a restless bee in a flower field. His tone was even, but his words were not a mere suggestion.

Will placed his head in one hand, allowing his chin to rest in his palm. “I didn't really think about our lives, past...” Past Molly. Past prison, past heat, past anything. “Past the two of us, together.” And that was true. He had pictured them, outside this cell. A little house amongst the trees. Cooking, fishing, walking, washing, talking and... making l-love.

“Ugh,” Will pushed his hands to his face as a shiver ran up his spine. He had imagined his head on Hannibal's lap as the Alpha read to him and stroked his curls. He had imagined them throwing sticks for the dogs to chase as the pets splashed around in the lake. Secluded, away from the world, free to surrender to their needs for each other. 

Will huffed below his breath at his own stupidity. _God._ He was an Omega, filled up with hormones and needs for a safe nest, and a warm, loving partner. Even without a uterus... It was biology. It was a dream where all the edges blurred into puffy clouds. They didn't exist alone, and life would cruelly continue in a world that contained so much more than blankets, naked skin and gentle rain on a rooftop.

“You shouldn't,” Hannibal was quick to reply, hands stretched flat on the table, as he looked back at his mate's unsteady gaze. Will felt like there was a film screen above his head, as a projector behind Hannibal showed all his thoughts on the white sheet. He fought the urge to look, and smiled bitterly.

Hannibal wanted a life together, too, but the way he would envision that could hardly be similar to Will's desires. He was an Alpha. He would want to hunt, and maybe he expected Will to want the same. Maybe he would want another job, a house in the city, a life amongst others, just like he'd had before... He wanted the outside world, and every bit of beauty it had to offer. And then make it his own.

Until someone would recognize them, chase them, catch them, or kill them.

Will swallowed hard, and scraped his bottom lip with his teeth. Another reason not to bond. Another reason why they couldn't leave, because Hannibal had made one condition quite clear: “You told me you are staying put, until we bond,” Will said, rough edges forming the accusation, as his eyes met calm amber. “Indeed,” Hannibal answered him, fingertips touching and pushing back out.

Will shook his head, and scraped his nails against the table. “Then I will have to consider Alana's offered choices,” he said, determinedly, suppressing a shudder that stroked a hand over his neck and Hannibal smiled until little wrinkles dug inside his cheeks. He looked endeared, almost, as if frustration was already too far behind them. “You shouldn't focus on what you feel others expect of you, Will,” he said. “Nor should you rebel, as a form of punishment.” His head gave a quick shake and Will breathed in deep, as he fought the scoff in his throat. 

Instead of scolding, Hannibal could get anyone to scold themselves.

“You should please your own needs, first and foremost,” Hannibal continued, and Will huffed, copying the smile of his Alpha as he pushed his head into his hands. Please his own needs. That was never how it had worked for him. In many ways, life had never been about Will Graham. He wouldn't know where to start, now. He wouldn't know what he found pleasurable. Hannibal pushed one fang into his stretched lip. “Unless you want me to do it for you.” 

Well, there was that. 

Will chuckled at the flirtatious insinuation, and caught Hannibal's glowing gaze and sharp smile with narrowed eyes of his own. “I do,” he admitted, a defeated laugh accompanying his words as he heard Hannibal's content purr fill the room around them. His strong Alpha was nothing but a big cat, in some ways. Living for that scratch behind the ear. And Will would scratch that ear, because lying and denying would no longer do them any good. Not when he was asking Hannibal for that very same courtesy.

He had only ever found pleasure with his Alpha. Pleasure that had taken many and unknown forms to him.

“Maybe I should start looking for a place nearby,” Will forced out of his lungs, pushing away the bold images that filled his head. What other choice did he have? Stay, until the walls drove him mad enough to beg for that bond? Hannibal looked at him, and Will felt the open caress close up on him with the suggestion. “You could stay here,” Hannibal countered stiffly, and Will drummed his fingers impatiently against the table edge.

“I do want us to move forward,” he sighed, biting down on his bottom lip. He wanted to work towards that understanding, a clear vision of what life should be like, a trusting relationship where the past didn't rule or overshadow the present and the future. “I'm not sure we can do that here.” 

The camera's, the microphones... they could never expose their entire mind to each other without feeling the pull of an extra pair of eyes. He wanted to experience their connection, and their relationship, baring all without feeling another presence, or a reason for games. He wanted to look into Hannibal's eyes and know that what was said and done, was for their benefit alone.

“If you're unwilling to leave with me, _now_...”, Will croaked softly, and watched Hannibal's lips purse in confirmation. What if he decided to step out? He could visit, every day, and take some time to look at things from safer distance. They would both feel the strain and the need between them, as Will tried to explore his own view on life and death, humanity and beauty. He could attempt to know himself, know what he was offering Hannibal, and therefore know if he could live with what Hannibal was offering him in return.

“It could be a new beginning,” Will said, swallowing the sick feeling from his throat. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to live another second separated from his mate. But they couldn't stay here and wait for change. He wanted that bond. He wanted to want it, without holding himself back. He wanted to learn to be free inside himself, like Hannibal.

“We are well past the beginning, Will,” Hannibal said, eyelids heavy over the amber gaze that shone beneath, before he pushed back his chair and shifted his weight to his knees. He rose, and turned his broad back to his Omega, resting his eyes back on the bookcase. 

Will watched that back, kindly accentuated by the thin, cotton jumpsuit. He remembered that time in the shower, where he had watched the skin of his Alpha's bare form, wet and slippery with foamy soap that ran down the long lines of his body, along the swell of smooth, curved cheeks. _God._ Will closed his eyes and pressed his palms to his eyebrows. 

“I could try to...”, he started, as he watched Hannibal strolling casually around the table, eyes on the walls as he interjected the Omega. “What would you be doing, out there?”, he asked, as Will stretched his neck to follow him with his eyes. His tone was lighter than the message. “Would you be looking for a job?” Will turned back his head as Hannibal glided past his chair, a finger tracing the back of the Omega's neck. “A house? A well-adjusted life?” Will shivered when the finger brushed the bulge of his skull, and his breath stuttered in his chest.

He knew what his Alpha was afraid of. Would Will fall for the lures of normality, again? Would he try to choose a life deemed acceptable to the outside world, and keep Hannibal waiting behind the glass bars? Would he betray him yet another time?

Finger brushed through his curls, and Will closed his eyes into the gentle pull, so easily turned to danger. Hannibal loved his skin, his hair, his temples with fingers that promised as much affection as pain. “Would you be seeking yourself amongst mediocrity and civility?” His tone wasn't mocking, but it didn't have to be. Will felt the anger, the fear, the need of his mate through the touch of his skin. Bitter pinches inside a deeply settled warmth that bloomed deep inside the core of life and blood and the marrow of his bones.

Hannibal loved him. Hannibal wanted him. Hannibal had no control. Hannibal was hurting, because of him. Hannibal was weak, because of him.

Hannibal didn't trust him. And Will couldn't blame him for it.

“I don't know what I will do,” he breathed against his hands, and Hannibal's fingers came to grip the back of his neck with light pressure. “But I'm not abandoning you.” His sigh sounded like a sob, and the hand released him when he really wanted it to stay. He heard the footsteps walking around him, and the scrape of the chair Hannibal pulled back out. When Will opened his eyes, the Alpha was back on the opposite seat, with folded hands and soft, prickling eyes. 

No. Will _wasn't_ abandoning him. What he wanted was to break down the memories, the past, the masks, the unfounded expectations... Both of them would have to work through that, from their end of the door, if they ever wanted to find themselves in that same room. But his mind was a complicated labyrinth, full of undigested trauma, and bloodstained, pale faces. All emotions filed into an archive, accessible at any moment he reached for the drawer. He could still feel his fears, like he was living them today. He could still hear words, as if hearing them against his ear.

“ _You_ are degrading us to _dating_ ,” Hannibal surprised him, light eyebrows gently raised, and Will smiled his teeth bare as he looked down at his hands. _Dating?_ They had skipped that part altogether, really. Will found it impossible to imagine what that would have looked like. Tuxedo's, strange flowers and expensive wine. Silk sheets, kisses on every knuckle of his fingers, and... human meat for dinner. 

“No,” Will said, finding nothing else to add. He didn't want to think about any of this anymore. He was still hoping to wake up tomorrow morning, and realize none of it mattered. That he was brave and foolish enough to take the plunge, and bond. “We just have to consider all our options,” he said, adding a small shrug of his shoulders, and watched Hannibal push a silver strand from his forehead. 

Hannibal smiled, microscopically, as Will watched the skin and muscles pull over the sharp structure of his bones. “You are very sensible about this,” the Alpha said, his eyes narrowing to the point of slits. Will looked at him, and traced the hollow of his sockets beneath the skin. Hannibal's eyes were sunken from lack of daylight, lack of sleep, lack of peace, and Will wanted to embrace all of him, entirely, and take him some place better. He could. 

If only.

“But it is against your nature,” Hannibal spoke evenly. “It is against your body, your beast, and your heart.” Will flinched at the words, the pain and the stubborn pride that burned beneath them. He knew this. He felt this. “I'm afraid to say yes,” he confessed wholeheartedly, because it was whole in his heart. 

“Life with you is pain.”

_God._

Will watched Hannibal's eyes fill to the brim with a burning water that spilled over the edge. One tear fell on his cheek, as if he controlled the action completely. When he spoke, his voice was even, and the control he forced upon himself was almost cruel. He couldn't allow the weakness to break his posture.

It was exactly the problem. 

“That's what you convinced yourself of, a long time ago,” Hannibal said, intense but soft. “It's not what you feel, today.” The words were not a plea, or a demand. They were spoken with certainty, but Will knew the strain that pulled beyond the conviction. Hannibal wanted to convince him. Hannibal needed him to believe it. 

Will stood up with an abrupt scrape of his chair as he walked around the table. That one tear was enough to break him open and give in to the desire to sag around his bones and forfeit the facade of being strong. They needed _together_. The back and forth was not without pretenses, because around the uncertainties and doubts, what they wanted was same.

Will didn't think about dignity, or unwanted eyes, as he approached his Alpha and slid himself over his mate's bent legs to sit in his lap, before wrapping both arms wholly around the warm shoulders. Hannibal's sigh was one of desperate relief as he pressed his forehead into Will's neck and held him, and Will mimicked the sound and the emotion, relieved the Alpha accepted his offer of comfort, as well as his own request for the very same.

“You brought out a side of me I was never willing to explore,” he whispered shakily into Hannibal's hair, soft and short against his lips. His weight was full against the Alpha's frame, as his mate held him tight and steady. Hannibal's nose brushed his throat, as Will closed his eyes with satisfaction. “I've always felt so overpowered by you,” he confessed, and felt Hannibal's fingers grabbing on to the fabric that covered his waist. “To an extent, it has always frightened me.”

Will had been overpowered by dominance, more times than he could count. His father, Jack Crawford, teachers, colleagues, even students... they felt his weakness, his empathy, and used it against him for their own cause. Knowing he couldn't afford to disappoint. He had been used by all of them, and the experience had made him weary, defensive, distrustful. 

“You're clinging to the past,” Hannibal's lips brushed the skin of his throat as he spoke the words with a low rumble that made Will's insides sing. “You were merely human back then, and I was already an Alpha.” Will didn't feel any tears falling against his skin, but Hannibal's throat sounded thick and raw as his fingers clenched him tightly. “You're an Omega now,” he said, inhaling deeply in the hollow of Will's throat. “A powerful, strong Omega.” A purr sounded through the choked words. “I cannot control you.”

Will inhaled deeply into the silver hair, before Hannibal pulled back from his collarbone, and met his eyes with red-rimmed gold. The tears were gone, but the shimmer remained. “It is you who holds my reins, now,” he spoke with open worship, as the fire danced on the water, and Will felt his muscles fall slack with weak, desperate desire, hitting him like a speeding train.

Hannibal was the most extraordinary creature to ever have walked this earth. He was beautiful, black burned rims, and all.

“I cannot be without you,” Will chuckled wetly at his own sentiment, as he brought up two hands to frame Hannibal's face. Palms under his chin, fingers at his temples. “That hardly makes me strong.” Hannibal answered his chuckle with a flutter of his lashes, as his teeth bit into his own bottom lip. “I cannot be without you,” he said. “We are both equally weak.”

Will watched the gold shine through full lashes, and traced his thumbs along Hannibal's sharp cheekbones, as his mate closed his eyes into the caress. “Surrender to that weakness, and we will thrive together,” the Alpha hummed, as one finger traced his bottom lip. Will sighed, wanting to sink into the warmth of his mate and surrender to those lips with his own mouth. But if he did, he wouldn't stop. 

“What if I want that to mean something other than you do?”, he asked him instead, as Hannibal's eyes fluttered back open, and met him with determination. “It won't,” he spoke, shaking his head lightly as he brought one hand to the front of Will's shirt. “But I know you want to believe this, without me having to telling you.” A small smile played around pink lips, and Will blinked away the quiver inside his belly.

He brushed Hannibal's eyebrows with his thumbs, as the Alpha cupped his face with one hand, traveling up from his chest. “I don't want you to surrender to me,” he spoke, and the honesty hit Will hard as his throat thickened and his jaw wiggled unstably inside his skull. Hannibal stroked his chin, and rubbed along his neck. “I never did. Not even before.”

Will believed him. He saw the truth in the lion eyes. Hannibal had not wanted to dominate him, or degrade him. He had wanted to break him, open him up, and shine brightly, together. He hadn't wanted to dim his lights, but to strike his match.

Hannibal loved him. He knew just where Will's pain was located, and he wanted nothing more than to take the pressure off of the bruise. Because Hannibal wanted him, for all that he could have, and the willingness to be what the Omega needed was real behind the long lashes. 

“I want to be your victory, as you would be mine,” Hannibal said, brushing his fingers behind Will's ear, as he watched him. The lit house in the misty night. Will breathed deep, and worried his bottom lip between his teeth. 

Hannibal wanted to be whatever he needed, and Will had no doubt that he could. He wondered only, if the Alpha possessed understanding of how to be transparent. Will didn't want Hannibal to paint a different face on on his porcelain mask for him. Nor did he need Hannibal to change the man behind that porcelain mask. But he would have to shed that porcelain mask, for Will. Only for Will. 

Only ever for Will.

“Kiss me.” The Alpha whispered against his lips. 

**

It was fifteen minutes later, when Hannibal had retreated to the bathroom to shave the days-old stubble that kept leaving red marks on Will's face and neck, that the prison door opened again. Will looked up from his place at the table, and saw one of the older ladies that often brought them their meals come in with a trolley, and an old-fashioned telephone.

“Phone call for mister Graham,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sings* Working, working, working sooo hard,.... to get to all of the reviewwwwwwws, .....cause they make my heart so happpyyy, .......and I really love you sooooo! - Ok, sing this to _Baby_ by Justin Bieber and hate me forever because it will be stuck in your head for a while!
> 
> Ok, I know I said this fic would be....OMG up to like 50 chapter by the end of it!!! GAH!! Yeah...this is chapter 44, and I am NOT nearly done... -.-  
> Make it 60. 60 plus! I always write so much more than I plan on writing and I am not going to rush it! Hope you can bear with me!! *fingers crossed* Love you guys!


	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The phone was collected and neither of them spoke a word. Hannibal was at the table, sketching a tower of a church he had undoubtedly once visited, and remembered with photographic precision. Years from now, he might be drawing the inside of this cell, as a memory of something left far behind.
> 
> Will approached him, and the Alpha looked up at the shuffling footsteps. The pencil was placed on the paper with a dull thud, and the scraping chair left a rough squeak to echo against the high walls as Hannibal rose from his chair, to meet his mate.

The black plastic felt cool against his ear, as Will clenched the receiver in his unsteady fingers.

“Hello?”, he breathed, and heard his own voice bouncing flatly back at him with deformed distortion, his lips pressed against the little holes that transported his words. He didn't expect a phone call. 

“Hello, mister Graham,” he was greeted from the other end of the line, and Will's fingers gripped tighter around the thick plastic in his hand. He hadn't expected to hear the voice that scratched his ear like a kneading kitten with razor-sharp claws, but he recognized it as if he had heard it every day since he had last seen her. Years ago. “This is Freddie Lounds,” she was crisp, chipper, business, like ever before. “I trust you remember me.”

He would have laughed, but nothing about Freddie Lounds brought even the shyest spark of joy to the moment. How could he afford to forget the ginger curls, the unique sense of style, the greedy fingers searching for a recorder from the bottom of her crocodile leather purse. And there was that one time he feigned killing her to lure Hannibal into a false sense of comradery, that hadn't been entirely false.

She had always despised him and his position with the FBI, as he had despised her, and her insatiable thirst for sticking her nose where it didn't belong. Her selfish, self-entitled, snobbish... “I remember,” he spoke impassively, as the tight ball of sour nerves started to wring behind his ribcage. Something was brewing.

“Good,” Freddie said, and Will could almost envision her on the other end. Her mobile on speaker phone on her desk, recording device parked right beside it, and pen and paper laid out as she filed her long, red nails to points. A demonic rat in Hell's sewers. 

“I would love to do the obligatory small talk, but I think you would just find that insulting,” she casually slid in, her voice a high, screeching note on an untuned violin. It made Will's skin crawl, as his mouth tightened with the familiar forwardness. 

“What do you want?”, he stabbed. He wasn't in the mood for games. He never was anymore. He was beyond that, as he was beyond her. He was far and deep beyond the life and the man he had been those years ago, where he had played along as she had used him and all the FBI as shoulders to climb on. 

But he wasn't dumb, or as blind as he once was. There had been something stirring, from his departure to Florida to his recovery back in Baltimore – and he knew just why she was calling. There hadn't been time to go out and find what had been missing, and now, it was too late.

He didn't bat an eye when she said: “I've recently received very interesting information about some videotapes concerning you and Doctor Hannibal Lecter”, but his heart did stutter, and his lungs did tighten. His blood did push from his face to the bottom of his heavy feet, and little drops of sweat formed in the soft strands of his armpit hair. 

He didn't speak, but her voice rang over and over in his head as he stared into the endless nothing that had replaced his view. Her voice was teasing, nonchalant, amused in a most unconcerned manner. She would fear Hannibal, but not him. She never had. 

_“It's not very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living.”_

He had told her that, once, and everyone had looked at him with the eyes of a scolding parent. _Don't show off. Behave._ Hannibal hadn't. Hannibal knew the place his remark had gurgled from. He had seen the true desire to put his hands around that long, pale neck, and wring the life out of her bony, little body.

He had always suppressed such appetites, and he had always judged others, including Hannibal, for acting on them. But the voice of the curly ginger against his ear, daring to speak his Alpha's name in such a context, made them flare wild inside his belly. 

“Tapes that contain images of the two of you, together, in a prison cell,” Freddie poked, and Will could hear her tongue pressing against her teeth as she held the lure above his nose, just out of reach. Those tapes contained images of him and Hannibal, together, from wildly sexual to painfully intimate. It was terrifying and beautiful and it showed his journey from heat to lost as he sank deeper into Hannibal every time they touched. 

His face pressed against the glass, the tender kisses in the morning...

“I know the tapes,” he said, as he flashed his teeth bare. His voice was calm, but inside, his Omega was pacing and growling on the porch, in need to protect him and his Alpha from dirty, greedy eyes and hands. From judging and clutching what they could never be worthy of understanding. 

“You are aware of their existence?”, Freddie asked him, and her surprise was genuine. Will could almost hear the file stop on her sharp nails. She didn't know the source of the material, it seemed. She wasn't aware it was him who stole them from the hospital, before someone had taken them from his motel room.

Unless Miss Lounds had taken it upon herself to break into his room, which he could never completely rule out, he didn't have to guess who had taken them. There weren't many options.

He confirmed her question with a hum from his throat, and heard her breathing past her perfect, white teeth. “That's good,” she said, audibly pleased. “That makes this conversation a lot easier.” Will pursed his lips together and pushed his tongue behind his bottom teeth. He followed her thoughts effortlessly, as he always had. An empath like him was hardly worn out by a transparent leech like a slippery reporter.

She hadn't been aware that he knew those tapes existed, and therefore, she must have feared he wouldn't believe them to be out in the world. She would have had to convince him, before she could talk business, or threats, or whatever she planned to be doing.

“You have the tapes?”, he asked, as his guts twisted cruelly around the ball of acid in his belly. The thought of her pressing play on the images of their naked skin, laid out together in the throes of passion, aggression and tenderness. The idea of sharing that with the prison staff was sickening. The idea of sharing it with Freddie Lounds was unacceptable. And the idea of her sharing that with the world, was enough for his nails to twitch against his bones, ready to lash out.

“I don't,” was her surprising answer, “but I've been made a very interesting offer to buy them.” Freddie's voice was pleasant, conversational with a hint of sharp, teasing teeth. As if she wasn't discussing the publication of his very private sex tape. “Someone is trying to sell them to you,” Will said. “Who?”

It didn't matter. He knew very well who. He could see him now, holding up those tapes with that crooked smile on his face and dollar signs in his one good eye. He had always been more of a salesman than a healer of the human mind. 

But Freddie believed she had leverage, and she did know about those tapes. She had seen them, maybe. She had stories to tell, with or without the images in her possession. He was not about to dismiss her, just yet. 

“Did you think I was calling you to just hand over that information?”, Freddie asked him, and Will smiled sourly against the phone. Not at all. She would have disappointed him, even. Freddie was good at what she did. She was the alligator beneath the floating lilies, and her strikes were always unapologetic. She wasn't beautiful, on the inside of her flawless skin, but she was consistently, indiscriminately destructive, which made her cleaner than most of her peers.

“Was the offer made to more people than just you?”, he asked, as his neck tensed with concentration. It was important to know who knew about the existence of the material. Whoever knew, had a story. But Freddie hummed a negative. “The owner told me I have first choice,” she said, and Will could almost imagine her puffing out her chest like a proud, prized pheasant. 

“But you can't afford them?”, Will poked, fingering a button over his chest. Behind him, the bathroom door opened, but he didn't look behind him to see his Alpha walk back inside the cell. He heard the chair scrape the floor.

“I could,” Freddie countered defensively. “Not lightly, but I could.” Will sucked his mouth dry of saliva as he breathed past his teeth. Of course something as wildly inappropriate and exciting as Hannibal Lecter's unwanted porn debut was something to charge for. Big sums. Huge sums. Will flashed his fangs bare at nothing as he heard the plastic crackle under his squeezing fingers.

Freddie cleared her throat. “But I feel these tapes were not legally acquired,” she said, and Will crinkled his nose. No. Not by him, not by 'whoever-stole-them-from-his-motelroom'. Nothing that touched Freddie Lounds was ever 'legally acquired.'

“Ah,” was his answer, and he tried not to feel Hannibal's presence as if he was standing right behind him with lips against his ear. He was at the table, Will knew. Reading, or drawing, or writing out recipes to people he found deserving of one. But his ears were open and turned, like a wolf listening for that hiding, wounded rabbit.

“So?”, he asked when Lounds hesitated. She had called him to play a game, but he was one step ahead of her already, and he felt a glimpse of unfounded delight at the knowledge that she needed him, more than he needed her and she was not at all aware of the fact. In her defense, it was a first. His initial response to threat and crisis had always been passive aggression and reluctant submission. His way of thinking had changed.

“I am not in the most comfortable position with the law at this moment...”, Freddie drawled, and Will's lips twisted into a raw smile. Ah. No, she never had been, had she? But for her to acknowledge it, and for her to hit the breaks, must mean she was in trouble. She had overstepped some boundaries too high for her heels, and she was laying low. Will wondered what she had done, who she had crossed, to feel the need to duck her head.

“I see,” he said as he rested his head fully against the warming receiver, as Freddie made an impatient noise against his ear. She was losing grip, and she was pushing out those red painted claws to regain it. “But I am certain _you_ and your 'murder boyfriend' don't want these videos to go public,” she said, predictably, and Will licked over his lips.

“So what do you suggest?”, he asked her, playing the fish that tailed her lure, ready to bite. She would have a plan. She would have her demands mapped out so perfectly that it would sound so easy to just give her what she wanted. She knew how it worked. She had done just this, successfully, for many, many years.

“You and Hannibal Lecter give me an exclusive, lengthy interview, complete with a photo shoot, providing me with full page pictures of the two of you in prison, staring lovingly into each others eyes,” she said, the confident, adventurous kitten with claws. Testing boldly how deep she could push into the flesh before it turned to bone. Will wondered what she would have said if it had been Hannibal on the phone instead. “I want details about your past relationship with each other, your presentation for Hannibal, details about you beastly sex life... All of it.” 

Oh, she had demands. Bright and big and colorful, and he had expected nothing less. It was still a big step up from having the tapes released on those groggy websites in the corners of the Internet. She had a lot to gamble with, and she was going to milk it for all it was worth.

“Right,” he said, as if considering her words with careful interest. A photo shoot? Staring lovingly into each other's eyes? You couldn't make it up, but Freddie sure did. “And in return,” she continued. “I will tell you who has the tapes.” Will sniffed against the horn. God, that was an easy bargain. She got what she wanted, legally, and all she had to do was throw him a name and watch things unfold.

“Scout's honor,” she said, quirkily, when he remained silent. He could imagine her holding up two fingers as she spoke to her mobile phone on her desk. He could also imagine her in a beige and army green uniform, a beret on her bouncy curls as she beat the other girls at the cookie competition every year.

“Interesting, Freddie,” he handed her, as he ran a hand over his throat. But it really wasn't. What interested him, was something else entirely. “Did you see the tapes?” Will heard her deep inhale, and knew she was considering her answer carefully. “I know what's on them,” she replied, which was not an answer to his question. “Did you see the tapes?”, he asked again, more forcefully, unwilling to be dragged around by the collar. “Images? Snippets? Teasers?”, he rattled, clenching his teeth as he pushed the words out with force he had often used during his FBI career. 

Impatience. That's what it was.

She sighed, hard, and he knew he had her. “Frozen frames only,” she admitted, as Will gritted his teeth behind his lips. He could only imagine what those frames would have looked like. “But it was pretty juicy stuff.” Of course it was. He knew exactly what was on those tapes. She wasn't bluffing.

He needed time to think. She knew about those tapes, and even if he had a good idea who had possession of them now, he had yet to discover where to find them. He needed to know, just as he needed to know how much information Freddie Lounds really possessed. He couldn't dismiss her as a non-threat quite yet. “Drop off your card at the front desk, and I'll be in touch within the next days,” Will said, as he clenched his jaw against the receiver.

Freddie was satisfied with his reply. “I'm awaiting your call, Mister Graham.”

**

The phone was collected and neither of them spoke a word. Hannibal was at the table, sketching a tower of a church he had undoubtedly once visited, and remembered with photographic precision. Years from now, he might be drawing the inside of this cell, as a memory of something left far behind.

Will approached him, and the Alpha looked up at the shuffling footsteps. The pencil was placed on the paper with a dull thud, and the scraping chair left a rough squeak to echo against the high walls as Hannibal rose from his chair, to meet his mate.

Will didn't stop walking until their feet touched, and Hannibal did not hesitate to reach for the back of his neck, and pull their lips together in a needy, gentle kiss. Their mouths slid together, open and wet, as Hannibal's smoothly shaved skin brushed against Will's chin and cheeks.

“Better?”, he asked, as Will rubbed his face against his like an affectionate cat. He smiled as Hannibal's lips pressed beneath his ear. It wasn't better. It was equally desirable, and equally maddening. Just like the way his mate's impeccable behavior was awfully correct, and undeniably arousing. He bit into Hannibal's smooth upper lip and licked inside of the Alpha's mouth.

When he pulled back, he looked at his mate with eyes that were lost, drowning deeply in desire and fear, yesterday and tomorrow.

“What is it?”, Hannibal asked him, his eyes full of wonder as his hand came to cup Will's cheek. The Omega shuddered as he leaned in, and pressed his mouth back against his mate's.

“Touch me...”, he whispered against the Alpha's bare teeth, 

“...please.”

**

_“Please.”_

Hard drops of sweat splashed between his spread fingers as held himself up on hands and knees, and shook the weight of his torso on his elbows against the mattress as Hannibal pushed deep inside his leaking, open hole. The rim stretched a wide, flushed pink around the Alpha's glistering, swollen cock that dragged in and out of his trembling body with every thrust of his hips.

_“Hannibal, please.”_

His walls gripped so tight around the big intrusion, that fit inside him like fingers in a rubber glove. There was no room to spare, as every glide in and outside of his slick, trembling opening was full and massive in contact and sensation that waved and crashed through his nerves without mercy.

 _“Fuck.”_ His voice was a high, raspy cry as Hannibal's hips connected brutally with the back of his ass, slow but forceful and as deep as he could go. The Alpha was pressing against the swell of his cheeks, thrusting fully into him from behind as one hand gripped Will's hip, and the other clenched tightly around his ankle, forcing Will's shin off the mattress and taking control of his mate's balance.

“Ughh.” Will dropped his head to his chest and shivered when Hannibal stretched him open with every inch he had to offer, as the Omega leaked fat drops of slick over the thick length of the Alpha's darkly flushed cock. Hannibal groaned behind him with a dark, velvet roll of his tongue, and pulled Will's ankle with an angry grip as he fucked through the barrier of clenching muscles. 

_“Will.”_

Hannibal's chest rumbled deep and powerfully as he yanked Will's body back around his cock with determined, guiding hands, over and over and over, as flowing slick stained the Alpha's powerful thighs wet. Will felt himself spilling tears over his cheeks from the blinding cruelty that was hot pleasure in his boiling blood. His toes curled against Hannibal's arm as his trembling thighs widened with every thrust home.

_“Yesss.”_

He whined like a wounded lamb and his nails shredded the mattress cover beneath him as Hannibal's hipbones dug into the back of his ass, which was covered in red marks where the Alpha's hands kept kneading his flesh. The bed frame squeaked in its hinges under the rocking motion of their bodies and Will arched his back with a wailing moan when Hannibal's lips closed on his shoulder blade. _“Fuck.”_ His ankle spasmed in the Alpha's fist as a hot tongue pushed and licked against his skin, and the hard, blood-filled shaft slid in and out of his body with the grip of a sucking mouth.

Hannibal was inside of him, as deep and wide as he could go, but Will wanted more. More skin, more touch, more faded lines between them, as he rocked his hips back and impaled himself again and again on Hannibal's pulsing cock. 

_“Hhnnn.”_ He felt his mate's hand steering him and heard him huffing fiery breaths through his flaring nose, reminding Will of a wild, prowling beast in the dark. The way his hard flesh rubbed intimately and fluidly against Will's prostate broke the Omega like a boulder crashed onto his bones, just as it weakened him like a feather to the bottom of his toes.

 _“Ah.”_ Tight fingers gripped into his hair and his head was pulled back by a demanding, tugging hand, as the other tightened further on his ankle. _Fuck._ His balance was lost, and he now depended solely on the way Hannibal held him up by his hair and leg as he continued to snap his hips against Will's ass every time the Omega pushed himself back. _“Fuck. **Fuck.**_ ” His voice was a pathetic squeak, high enough to make his own ears ring as Hannibal drove home with every demanding thrust into his dripping body. _“Ah, ah.”_ Will's mouth opened in a never ending gasp as his eyes closed over his tears, and his head hung slack in the Alpha's grip. 

_“Uhh.”_ Another tight pull on his skull, before his hair was released by the clenching fingers. Will could barely catch himself on his own arms as his temple hit the mattress and he wailed with stuttering hips. But the Alpha denied him time to push himself back up as he continued to hammer the head of his hot erection against Will's prostate. The Omega fought a cry in his throat when those fingers found his belly and pushed over his chest to pinch at a tight, angry, pink nipple. 

“Fuck. _Stop.”_ Will sobbed openly, when a sharp, hot spark sizzled from his chest to his groin and pooled around his prostate like a scorching poker. Hannibal's hips stilled, as the hand on his chest pushed Will upright against him, and held him in a strong embrace. But the Omega howled his fury and reached one hand back to dig nails deep into the flesh of Hannibal's flanks. “ _No_ , don't stop,” he mewled, snarling with desperation. “ _ **Don't**_ fucking stop.” 

The Alpha growled his surprise at his hissing, scratching mate, as he pushed Will's head down with a strong hand to his neck. _“Fuck,_ ” Will spat as his good cheek pressed deep into the mattress, and his ass arched up into the air. Hannibal wasted no time fulfilling his angry demands by pushing all the way back in, and hammering down on Will with a punishing pace that made his cheek chafe against the bed cover, and his nails dig so deep into the surface he could feel the filling of the mattress against his fingers.

 _“Hannibal.”_ He was gone. He was pulled up by a giant claw that ripped him for the earth and threw him into the fire pit, where the pleasure that licked at him was almost painful to bear. His ass spasmed around Hannibal's girth as sweat dripped from his temples to the bed, thighs shaking wildly and his Alpha growling against his back. “Is _this_ what you want?”, he bit against Will's skin as he pushed deep into the leaking, milking hole that quivered and fluttered around the forceful, rapacious length of Hannibal's pulsing cock.

 _“Ah.ah.ah,”_ was all a helpless Will could pant against the bed as his unsteady hand tried to reach between his own legs for the length of his glistering, painfully red erection. He wasn't going to pump himself. God no. He was going to squeeze the tip between his fingers to stop himself from spilling the giant wave of promised pleasure he felt building towers right behind his pelvis. 

But Hannibal grabbed hold of the wandering hand and squeezed Will's fingers between his own as he rocked himself inside the convulsing form of his lost, frantic mate, before he pulled out of the wailing Omega. Will sobbed violently at the drag of the thick, hard Alpha cock as it slipped from his body, and the loss was a cruel emptiness that made his insides spasm with need around nothing at all. Slick dripped down his perineum and rolled down the back of his tightened balls, as fresh tears fell onto the mattress beneath him. _“Please_ ,” He roared, not as politely as the word would make it seem, and twisted his head around with a violent jerk of his neck to see his Alpha sliding himself backwards on the bed, pulling at Will's hips and twisting his body towards him.

“Let me look at you...”, the Alpha rumbled heatedly as strong hands grabbed hold of Will's waist and turned his body on and over his lap until the Omega straddled his hips. Will whimpered wantonly, allowing himself to be handled, and cried with desperation as Hannibal's hard cock poked hot and slippery against his cheeks. “... as you take your pleasure.” Will looked at his mate, cheeks flushed and hair damp, as he shimmered with a bronze glow that touched his eyes from the inside out. Lion eyes, black with a thin, golden frame as they shone up at him from beneath heavy lids. 

“God, _Hannibal_ ,” Will trembled, wildly lost as his hands stretched on the Alpha's heaving chest. His mate's words made his jaw fall slack, his lashes flutter, and his fingers curl in his mate's coarse, silver chest hair. Strong, veined hands moved around his waist to lift his weight up on his knees, before the wide head of Hannibal's erection poked against the pool of slick that had formed around his hole.

 _“Yes,_ ” he moaned, pushing back against the hot, hard flesh as he felt it breaching his body with a wide and unforgiving stretch. _“Fuck yes._ ” The rim of the head caught his prostate as Hannibal's eyes glazed over with a fiery spark, until he had guided the Omega all the way onto him and Will's ass touched the sharp hipbones beneath.

“Just like that,” Hannibal approved with a hoarse purr as Will squeezed around him, ensnaring him inside the tight, slippery heat that was his body. The Omega was on his knees, fully impaled on his Alpha mate, and the uncontrolled flutter in Hannibal's eyes was enough to drive him wild with newly discovered potential. 

He pushed up his hips, and watched his Alpha's lips parting as he slid all the way out of Will's heat, until only the head of his cock remained past the fluttering rim. Then, he slid back down with more force than he had intended, and watched his mate's eyes roll back inside their sockets.

 _“Ahh,”_ Will moaned when his prostate was thoroughly rubbed by the width of Hannibal's veiny shaft, and felt the change of position bringing him even more friction to the pulsing little bundle of nerves inside his body. He straightened his back, and with one hand tightening in Hannibal's chest hair, he started to rock his hips back and forth, rubbing his mate along his inner walls with deep, choked sighs that moistened his lips.

Hannibal praised him with stroking hands on Will's belly and chest, brushing fingers along nipples and collarbones. “Touch yourself,” he growled with fangs bare and eyes blazing black as his skin glowed a rosy gold, and Will trembled at the sight of moisture shimmering on the brim of those thick lashes.

The moan that slid from the back of his throat was beyond anyone's control as he bit his bottom lip and rode his mate with frantic rolls of his hips. “Yes, _yes_ ,” he agreed blindly, and allowed Hannibal to guide his hand down to the bobbing erection, rubbing back and forth against the Alpha's belly hair. _“Fuck.”_ His hand wrapped around his own length, as he stroked the weeping head in the tunnel he created with his folded palm. 

Hannibal's eyes glistened like diamonds as he watched Will rub himself with short, circling motions and riding the Alpha's cock with wild determination. Will could feel his skin heating up to a flushing pink, his curls getting stuck to his damp neck and forehead as he worked himself over and against Hannibal's strong, pulsating body. 

_Fuck,_ his prostate was teased to the point of flaming red, and he was hard and high on the edge of orgasm. But not yet. Just a little longer. Not until he would feel Hannibal's release bursting inside of his body like exploding rain in a dessert drought. “You like this, don't you?”, he hissed with pants through open lips, as he rolled his head back and worked his hips with sharp, riding motions against Hannibal's abdomen. His balls dragged along strong muscles, soft skin and rough, curling hair as his hand massaged over the blood-filled head of his rock hard cock. “You like to be controlled.”

Hannibal's eyes sparkled like gems in the moonlight as his nose flared and a pointed fang sank into his bottom lip. “By you,” he preached with holy conviction, and Will smiled his teeth bare around a ripping gasp that tore from him from the end of every tender nerve. Control. 

It was Hannibal who had pulled Will on top of him, and Hannibal who had ordered the Omega to take himself in hand and ride him. Will controlled the pace, the depth, the contact, but the Alpha remained the dominant party. Always.

Will was about to gasp a mocking reply as he squeezed himself tighter around his mate, but was rendered speechless by the sight of the Alpha's eyes, widening and wetting as his lips opened and his ears blushed pink. And suddenly Will saw it, right here between his thighs, beneath his hands and under his eyes; he did control the Alpha. Hannibal was weak for him, helpless in his desire, created not by animal lust but by love and adoration. He loved him.

And if Will would ask him to put on a blindfold, chain himself to the ceiling and wait until the Omega would find the time to grace him with his presence... well... Hannibal had control because he took it, but that didn't mean he was unwilling to give it up when desired, for Will. _By you,_ he had said. “Only you,” followed after.

Hot hands ran over Will's working thighs and up his belly, as the Omega fell into a steady, hard rhythm against Hannibal's pelvis, and worked the Alpha's cock deeper and harder inside the tight heat of his burning body. “Fuck, _ugh, ugh,_ ” he grunted, bouncing harder as his hair beat against his eyes and his hand worked faster over the slick head of his cock.

Finger squeezed his legs and nails scraped his belly before they came to pinch his tightly peaked nipples once more, and Will rode his pleasure with abandon as he hissed at the burning spark that spread from his sternum to his loins.

He watched Hannibal's lost look of pure ecstasy and worship, pink high on his cheekbones and bare devotion in his eyes. Will pushed himself forward in a helpless need to taste him, to feel him as close as he could possibly have him without carving open his skin to live inside the broad cage of his ribs. Lips met in a panting, sloppy kiss that never closed, as Hannibal kept mouthing the same words against Will's teeth. _Only you._

The Alpha's hand tugged at his hair, bringing them closer into a slick slide of tongues as their bodies rocked in and against each other with an urgent need that couldn't be soothed. _“Yes,”_ Will agreed without air as he placed his hands beside Hannibal's head and worked himself over the Alpha's cock, pulsing hot and so near eruption he could feel it swelling inside him to the point the slide was almost raw against his overstimulated flesh.

 _“Yesss,"_ he grunted again as Hannibal's lips whispered against his skin, his eye, the side of his nose. He forced the Alpha into a bruising kiss of lips and tongue before he brought his hands back to the hot, damp, hairy chest and pushed himself back upright, buckling against the relentless hips of his mate's thrusts into his body.

 _“Hnnn,”_ Will cried, clenching his eyes to slits as his fingers rubbed quick strokes over the swollen head of his sensitive cock. “I _can't_...”, he cried out with wide open eyes when Hannibal grabbed hold of his hips, and yanked him back hard on his cock with every thrust. “Fuck. _Fuck.”_ Will's body almost fell slack as he felt the Alpha open him deeper and wider with a violent assault to his bruised prostate.

 _“Oohhh.”_ His own fingers found his nipple to pinch the swollen nub and the sight made Hannibal groan beastly beneath him before the Alpha pulled Will's hips down as far as he would go, and held him tightly as he pushed in, deep, deeper, and his eyes blazed black with such force it consumed most of his whites. _“Yes,”_ was Will's feral growl as he felt Hannibal's belly spasming against him, thighs clenching and eyes rolled back. Inside, he felt the Alpha's release spurting hard and deep into his body with forceful enthusiasm and Hannibal's mouth opened in a silent howl as he clawed at Will's thighs and hips with unseeing eyes and desperate fingers. 

It was everything Will needed to stop himself from holding on, and with a violent spasm of his muscles, his own release pulsed over the knuckles of his hands as he jerked on top of the erupting cock inside of him. He felt everything, all of it. From the wild, bleeding pleasure of his prostate squeezing his insides tightly around his mate, to the violent, itching pleasure, sharp as glass just behind his pelvis. He felt his toes flooding and pulling with powerless glory, and the roots of his teeth glowing inside his mouth. His eyes were wet, his lips were open, his fingers clenched and his body shuddered as he came, and came, and came over Hannibal's damp, hairy belly.

The noises he made were comparable with a man trying to stop a speeding train from crushing him, but crushed he was as his bones shuddered like a bare skeleton and his veins and nerves twisted with electric life that ended in a hot ball of cruel pleasure right behind his groin.

He felt Hannibal's continuing release inside of him as he collapsed, and doubled over against his mate. Wet with sweat and slick and semen, trembling with pleasure and effort and exhaustion, and panting with the overwhelming warmth of having those strong arms wrapping protectively around him.

“Fuck,” he moaned against Hannibal's nipple as his head rose and fell with the Alpha's ragged breathing. His mate shuddered against him as Will felt another cloud of release pushing for room inside him. He was filled, and despite the cock still filling his hole as wide and far as it would go, he started spilling around the edges of his opening, dripping down his ass and thighs.

“Jesus. Hannibal,” he shook with deep pants as his tired muscles released their strength and he sagged against the warm, glowing body beneath him. His mouth was opened against Hannibal's throat, and large hands came to stroke and knead his flesh from ass to hips, to the back of his neck. “Tu esi puikus, mano kunigaikštis,” Hannibal mouthed beneath his ear, and Will closed his eyes as he shuddered with remaining pleasure that flared at the deep, husk words whispered against his skin.

He didn't know the meaning, but before he could find half a brain to enquire, Hannibal's hands started soothing down his sides. “Did I hurt you?”, he asked with a voice as raw as flesh without skin and Will pushed his head up with a puzzled frown as he looked back into warm honey and firefly eyes. Fingers brushed alongside his stitches and Will wriggled at the wholesome touch on his over-sensitive skin. 

“Your back, your cheek...”, Hannibal reminded him, and Will's teeth shone from behind the exhausted smile that pushed open on his lips. Right. He was still injured. “Ask me again in an hour,” he mumbled pleasantly against Hannibal's cheek, before he pressed soft kisses to the smooth skin that smelled like shaving cream, fresh sweat and a musky, lively scent that was a mix of human male and powerful beast.

Hannibal hummed into the contact as he pushed his hips closer against Will's ass, making them both shudder with the intense connection and over-stimulation. He was still buried deep inside his mate, and Will's body fluttered uncontrollably around him.

“I hope to have dozed off by then,” the Alpha purred and Will pushed his elbows beside his mate's head to look down on him with a worn-out smile. “Hmmmm,” he moaned as he slid his spent body languidly over the stretch of Hannibal's. “Me, too.”

Will dipped down for a lazy kiss, before Hannibal pulled out the blankets and wrapped them around the Omega's shoulders, cocooning them together in a nest of soft sheets and naked skin. “Jesus,” Will cursed again as he settled himself against Hannibal's chest, and felt the golden glow stretching inside his body from soles to cranium. It was madly addictive and possibly lethal.

They didn't disconnect, nor did Hannibal soften enough to simply slide out, and neither of them made a move to change it as Will closed his eyes contently and nuzzled against Hannibal's throat.

“Do you have business to attend to?”, the Alpha asked him, groggy with sleep and satisfaction, as his voice vibrated against Will's ear, straight from the vocal cords. “I do,” Will spoke against the hot skin, hiding pulsing veins just beneath the surface. Hannibal's tone was light, but his fingers tightened significantly on Will's naked hips. 

“Are you leaving the cell?”, he asked, as Will's lips sucked a bruise on Hannibal's slowing pulsing point. “I am,” the Omega answered, using his own hands to grip into Hannibal's sides to create the same imagery. There had been so many doubts before, but now he knew he had to leave. There were some things to take care of. Some things he needed to figure out all by himself.

“How long?”, Hannibal asked him, stuttering when Will flexed around his semi-aroused state. “As short as I can make it.” Will replied honestly, allowing one fang to trace over the Alpha's collarbone. He wasn't going to stay away. Not only did the distance kill them slowly, he also didn't _want_ to be without his mate. Not anymore.

“We'll let Alana know,” Hannibal said, and Will sighed deeply as he pressed his nose behind his mate's ear, closed his eyes and drifted on a cloud made of strong, Alpha male.

They would. 

Later. Much, much later.


	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It only took Will ten minutes to look through the house, crack open a soda from the fridge, and whip out his mobile phone. “Phone call for Hannibal Lecter. This is Will Graham.” He could almost hear the eyeroll on the other side of the line. Gone for an hour, and here he was again like a lovesick teenager.
> 
> But Hannibal's voice was a velvet stroke to his soul, and he closed his eyes as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. “They gave me an apartment, right across the park,” he told the Alpha, who hummed against his ear and caused his skin to break out in goosebumps.

“I think this choice is the right one to make, Will,” Alana spoke approvingly as she scribbled hasty phrases on the form on her desk. Beside her, Doctor Hammings crossed his legs as he sipped his coffee from a pine green mug and eyed the paperwork with squinting, wrinkled lids. Will was leaving, and the old man didn't like the Omega's decision to depart so soon after his return. He didn't like it at all. But Will was healthy as ever before, with a glow on his face and his stitches removed. There was no reason to decline his request.

That didn't stop the old Doctor from concentrating and thinking so hard behind his foggy glasses, veins started popping in his whites. Will had trouble keeping his lips from twitching at the sight.

“I will strongly advise you to visit Doctor Lecter on a daily basis,” the old man said, feeling hopelessly sour about losing a powerful addition to his virtual museum of rare, dangerous creatures. Will knew the man feared for his subject's health and safety, and that he silently questioned the Omega's competence to make decisions that wouldn't lead to his own, quick demise. He didn't have faith in Will's ability to know his own limits and return to his Alpha before it would get hazardous. 

He feared Will would stay away too long.

He wouldn't.

“Maybe three or four conjugal visits for the first weeks, before we settle on two?”, Hammings commented – a sharp, persistent eye on Alana beside him. Her attention didn't shift from the document on her desk, but her lips tightened and her nose wrinkled as she kept scribbling on the form. “Three,” she bit reluctantly, as her eyes flashed up to Will, seated comfortably across from her. 

She didn't want him around here, he knew that. She wanted him to find a way to live without the Alpha, and possibly die trying, and let Hannibal would waste away in his beautiful, glass cage. She wanted them separated so the Alpha couldn't feed the monster inside Will. So together, they wouldn't find a key to freedom. 

They were a Per mutua nexis couple. Bonded or not, Alana did not know what that entailed. What barriers it unfolded. What opportunities it unlocked. So Will walking away and turning his back on the chained yet powerful Alpha, was a hopeless dream he knew she clung to, because it was all she had left to be freed from the ongoing terror that was Hannibal's promise.

_“Daily visits_ ,” Hammings reminded him. “Lets not gamble with your safety.” Will nodded politely, and knew the last bit was for the ears of his white-suited and high-heeled colleague, who ignored the words and turned the document towards Will, handing him her silver pen.

“Sign here, here and here,” she said, pointing towards the dotted lines on different pages as she tapped her long nails impatiently against the desk. The Doctor cleared his throat before Will could even consider picking up the pen. “ _After_ you have read the documents, of course,” Hammings added, a disapproving look now open on his face as he blinked his gray lashes rapidly over watery blue eyes.

Finally, Alana looked up from the sheet and into Will's ocean irises that held her blues with an almost apprehensive wonder, and her shoulders sagged in her frame like a beach ball with a leak. “Of course,” she breathed and shook the tension from her head with a little shake, as if to fight off screeching seagulls. Will almost smiled as he played with the silver pen between his fingers, and watched a sharp exchange of looks flashing between the Doctor and Alana before him. 

It was good to have a plan. 

A plan made you powerful, kept you grounded and steady, gave you a direction to aim for and the chance to manipulate the world to your liking. It was no wonder Hannibal often portrayed that cat in the sun, when the sun was so often shining down upon him. Right here, Will felt very close to his Alpha, despite the distance between them.

“Let me see.”

He didn't need to read the contract. It didn't matter. But he made a show of scanning every page in a dragging, pressing silence as he clicked the pen with his thumbs. _Click, click, click_. Something about conjugal visits... _The parties may engage in sexual activity._ No news there. _Articles from outside the premises may not be brought inside unless approved by the security staff._ As if Alana would allow him to bring as much as a bouquet of harmless daisies. _If approved by the security staff, conjugal visits may last overnight, after which the visiting party leaves after breakfast is served and consumed(at 8:00 A.M.)._ Great. Early showers and soggy oatmeal. The coffee they served here tasted like tar.

“What if it doesn't work out?”, he asked after a dull, thrumming ten minutes had passed where the room was filled with pen-clicking, page turning and Doctor Hammings' coffee slurping from the other side of the desk. Alana's hands had clenched on the edge of her arm chair, the tense noises too much for her nervous system to bear. “What do you mean?”, she asked him, trying not to grit her teeth as Hammings' pale blue eyes quirked up with interest.

“What if it's too difficult or painful, and I want to come back?”, Will asked, his expression a beautiful blend of honest interest and innocent disorientation. But it wasn't honest, nor was it innocent. He could see the twitch around Alana's eyes, and knew she was cursing him for touching the possibility of something he knew was unwanted, but could not be stopped.

“I don't think that is something to consider quite yet, Will”, she said, predictably, as she straightened the collar of her jacket with restless hands. Her coffee remained untouched in a mug before her, cold. By the looks of it, she had already had her fill. “The fact that you are willing to leave the cell is telling enough,” she said, blue eyes wide and penetrative as she looked at him. “It wouldn't be good for you...”

“Hypothetically,” Will interrupted her kindly as he folded his hands on his lap and settled his back comfortably against the rest. Hammings' eyes shot from him to Alana with fearful enthusiasm and Will watched her pupils flare with fire as he waited patiently for his reply with an ankle crossing his knee.

_“Legally,”_ she breathed between her teeth and Will bit his lip as he tilted his head. “I _can't_ stop you from doing that.” Her words were choked, and Will nodded his head: “Good.” He sat up straighter and lowered his feet to the floor as Alana rushed to interrupt him. “But I _will_ have the medical team examine your health to determine whether...” Her eyes met Hammings for urgent confirmation, who suddenly sat on the edge of his seat. “Certainly, yes,” the Doctor joined in, nodding his old head with joy at the prospect of having the Omega back on his chair to probe with needles and ask invasive questions. Will didn't bat an eye.

Alana was frantic, desperate, as her hands kept straightening her clothes and her heels tapped rapidly against the floor. She needed him to go. Her survival could possibly depend on it. Will remembered Muskrat Farm; she wouldn't go out of her way to hurt him, but if he was part of the deal, she surely wouldn't save him. 

“I've told you before, Hannibal is too dangerous a patient...”, she continued, as little drops of perspiration shimmered right beneath her hairline, but Will held up a hand to silence her oncoming speech. “I understand, Alana,” he interrupted with a friendly smile. “Like I said; it's _purely_ hypothetical.” She looked at him with an expression frozen with the racing thoughts that pushed and fought behind her eyes. He could almost see them, leaking out from her ears, her nose, dribbling down her cheeks like dirty, frightened tears.

She waited, with folded hands on the desk and her head tilted ever so slightly to the right. He knew she was hoping for him to elaborate. To tell her he would try his very best to stay away and that he wanted that life without Hannibal, more than his inner beast could grip him with its desperate claws. He was on her side. He was on her team. Good was good and bad was still irrevocably bad, and he would keep his eyes on the horizon, forward. A new beginning.

He didn't tell her any of that. He didn't tell her anything. He simply mimicked her posture, and blinked lazily at her twitching eyes. “So,” Hammings interjected the awkward silence with a nervous flinch around his brow. Alana almost jumped at his voice beside her, betraying how deeply she had sunk into herself. She was losing her sharpness and concentration, Will knew. He pictured her nightmares, her fear to fall asleep, her incompetence as an overstimulated, enervated mother of a small, lively child.

“So,” Alana repeated, flustered, as she pushed herself upright in her chair and blinked the dark thoughts from her blue eyes. Will crossed one leg over his knee, and hooked his linked hands around it as he bounced his foot back and forth. Their eyes met; the summer sky on a clouded day, and the ocean with a surface that sparkled blue and green, but descended into pitch black underneath. Alana broke the contact, shifting her eyes downwards to the unsigned paperwork.

“I'll allow conjugal visits three times the first week,” she told him stiffly, as she scribbled an additional note in the sideline of her filled out form. “After that, I am reducing it to two times.” Their eyes met again through a lost strand of dark hair. “Notify our security staff in advance.” 

The edges around her eyes were razor sharp and Will didn't hide the fact that he was openly observing her. _Oh Alana._ She was floating in the space she had once inhabited with her feet sturdy on the ground, and she used those sharp, red nails to cling to whatever would keep her from drifting and twirling into the uncontrolled chaos of the endless universe.

“Fine,” he spoke pleasantly, and watched Hammings shoot a disgruntled look towards his colleague. He didn't like the new arrangement. He didn't like Will's unsupervised time spent in a world without cameras and recorders. Hammings wanted to study him. Alana wanted him as far as he would allow to be pushed.

She opened a drawer of her desk, and for the second time this very month, she presented him with a key. Will watched the dangling silver catch the light and hid a smile behind his fingers. They had talked about this; him and Hannibal.

_“I'll have to find a nearby hotel,”_ he had said, eyes closed and head tilted back, as Hannibal had worked shampoo into his hair with strong, massaging fingers. _“I am not going back to...”_

- _“No need”_ , Hannibal had assured him, as he ran gentle fingertips behind his mate's ears. _“Alana will have arranged something for you.”_ Will had opened his eyes, turning his gaze over his shoulder with questioning brows. His Alpha had smiled at him from behind his back, fangs shining almost blue in the bathroom light. _“She will want you to stay away”_ , he had said knowingly as he brushed the bridge of his nose along the shell of Will's ear. _“Which means you will have to be more comfortable out, than in.”_

The key was placed on the table with a loud clang and pushed towards him over the desk. Alana's eyes had softened on him, and Will knew that she was aiming to stir gratitude, obligation and loyalty within him. He had lost those long ago. “To support your choice, and to help you on your feet, the prison has a furnished apartment you could use on the other side of the park,” Alana told him, her blue eyes now a soft sky as she nodded towards the small, silver key. Will smiled, crinkling his eyes with good humor. Hannibal would be insufferable when he'd hear about this.

“That is very kind of you,” he said, and grasped the cold key with his nails to scrape it off the desk, and folded the palm of his hand around it. “Thank you, Alana,” Hammings blinked unhappily at the taken offer, but he didn't speak as he started to push his lips against his tar-stained teeth. Alana's eyes lowered briefly to her hands, as if regretful, when she said: “It is a temporary arrangement.” And Will smiled with closed lips and an encouraging nod. 

It was. 

Alana tilted her head, pushing white, straight teeth into a red-painted lip. “It's usually only available for staff members that are unable to travel home, for whatever reasons,” she explained, before handing him an envelope she had retrieved from the same drawer the key had emerged from. An address. A phone number. A map with directions. A contract.

“You are allowed to use this place for two months before we need it back,” she told him, accompanied by a slow blink of misgiving. “I would suggest you start looking for a place of your own as soon as you can.” There was urgency there, that she hid with a rueful smile. “I can arrange a job interview with...”

Will uncrossed his legs and brought his hand back up, wondering if his eyes were as bright as he felt them to be. She was slipping where he was finally finding footing in a world he had never belonged in. With Hannibal, he had discovered his own capacity – to control what had always controlled him. “That won't be necessary,” he said, as he rose to his feet and reached for his coat. “I know what I'm going to do.”

His words were non-threatening, spoken kindly and without worry, and Alana's face pulled downwards in distrustful confusion at his confident tone. Will had a reputation for being an inscrutable pessimist. His behavior here and now frightened her to the point her lips twitched around her teeth and her eyes squinted over the orbs and he realized he had played her this way, because he preferred the sight of her fear over the sight of her pity. 

“I'll be fine,” he assured her as he stepped towards the desk, and observed her visible flinch as he took the silver pen to sign the documents with one, two, three signatures. “Thank you,” he repeated, as he hooked two fingers in his coat to fling it over his shoulder. “Doctor,” he nodded to Hammings, and watched the man open his mouth, undoubtedly to arrange another check-up. But Alana quickly stood from her chair, and placed both hands on the desk.

“Give yourself time,” she said, as the blue in her eyes turned a stormy gray. “I don't wish a life in prison on you, Will.” Her face was tight, her eyes were endless and Will smiled his lips wide over his teeth. “Don't worry,” he told her. 

“I'm not planning on it.”

**

“Mister Graham,” a familiar voice called after him as Will walked down the hallway to the building's exit. The pitch was high and the tone was filled with unwarranted familiarity. He didn't need to turn to identify the man as the blond guard, Dennis.

But he did turn, and was greeted by a waving hand as the young guard strode towards him with a hurried pace. “Hello, Dennis,” Will said, and up close, he could see the tan on his face was a combination of tanning booth and orange lotion, stark against his teeth and hair, both bleached to the point of glowing. “You're leaving, sir,” Dennis said without asking. His brown brows furrowed as he blinked his lashes and his pink lips pushed together in honest concern. 

“For now,” Will answered him as he wrapped his arms around his army green coat and nodded his head. He noticed the pull around Dennis' eyes, and felt himself touched by the truthful display of humanity. It was a rare thing to experience within these walls, if not similarly so outside of them.

“Will you come back before you get sick, or injured again?”, Dennis asked him, startlingly straightforward, as he crossed the arms in his black uniform over his broad, bulging chest. He tried to appear practical rather than afraid, but it only made Will's lips twitch at the sight. He was concerned for his health, and very uncomfortable about it. 

“That's the plan,” he said, giving the man an affirming nod. He blinked his lashes, slow and heavy, like he had seen Hannibal do so many times. Trust, it said. Easy, comfortable, safe. Cat in the sunlight. “I'll be back shortly. I don't intend to go far,” he offered as Dennis visibly relaxed before him. His arms came undone, and his frown turned up to an enthusiastic dance of eyebrows.

“If you need a place to crash...”, the guard shrugged casually with the offer as his ears tuned pink against the bleached blond hair, and Will's lazy, feline eyes widened with the sudden, unexpected proposal. A place to crash? Was Dennis offering him his spare bedroom, the couch...? Surely that wasn't in the job description.

“Oh, eh...”, he quickly fished the silver key from his pocket, and dangled it from his index finger. “No need,” he said, as he jiggled the key against the attached ring and watched Dennis' eyebrows shoot up at the sight. “Oh,” the guard exclaimed, rapidly blinking over boyish blue eyes. “Good. That's great.”

Will tucked the key back into his jeans and watched Dennis step closer to him from the corner of his eye as he heard him mumble: “I'm not really allowed to offer you anything, anyway.” The confession made his ears turn even brighter against the fair hair. “It's not professional.”

Will quirked an eyebrow as he took a step back to create the personal space he so desired. The guard smelled like some kind of spicy sports cologne that Hannibal would probably find even more distasteful than his ship on a bottle. Of course it wasn't professional. “Then, why did you?”, he asked, a tinge of stunned amusement lacing through his voice. The boy was foolish. Curious. Kinder than his job required. His intentions were honest rather than efficient, and in a way, he reminded Will of the headstrong Beverly Katz. 

He could have been Beverly's younger, more innocent brother.

“You can't be out on the street,” Dennis said as he gestured towards the door at the end of the hall. “There is a lot walking around out there that should be locked in here.” Will chuckled at the quick wit of the young guard. Indeed, a young Beverly Katz. Dennis bit on the inside of his lip before his eyes pulled from the door and back to Will. “Doctor Lecter would be enraged if something happened to you.” 

Will looked up at the taller, broader, younger man before him and stared at the electric blue eyes. He briefly wondered if they were contacts. But the mention of his mate made him smile. It was beyond his control to picture an infuriated Hannibal, thrashing the room and threatening the staff because Will came home with the sniffles. “Well...”, he started, but stopped when he watched Dennis' eyes widen with an incoming, frightening thought. “On the other hand...”, the blond added breathlessly. “Doctor Lecter would probably murder me if you did come back to my house.”

The buzzing blue eyes, almost definitely contacts, stayed widened as the guard seemed to lose himself in the scenarios that played vividly behind his sockets. Will brushed his eyes over the ceiling, pushed his upper lip over his teeth and breathed in deep. “He's not...”, he hesitated before bringing his eyes back to Dennis, who blinked at him with open innocence. “...well, let's not take any chances,” Will finished pleasantly as he tapped his hand against the black-clad shoulder of the guard, who nodded his head fast and numerously.

And now that he was _here_... “Did a red-headed woman leave something for me at the front desk?”, he asked and Dennis' his head quirked up at the question. He enjoyed to help. He enjoyed to please. He enjoyed the approval of other people like a Labrador enjoyed his tennis ball. Will knew the type. His father was probably a hard, distant kind of man, where his mother was most likely a woman that couldn't find an encouraging heart for a sensitive child.

He might have been picked on at school by the stronger boys, the sharper girls, a pompous teacher. His hair too mousy, his body too fat, his skin too pale. His eyes too dull, his brain too limited and his teeth too yellow. But he changed all that he could change about himself, even when it didn't change the boy on the inside. Maybe the girls noticed him now. Maybe the boys had stopped pushing him around. Maybe his mother had started praising him, showing pictures to her friends of him in his uniform. 

Will rolled his eyes at his own inner psychiatrist that sounded an awful lot like Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Spending so much time together, and breaking down the walls between them, did indeed blur the lines of the rooms in their minds. Or, if he had been in more of a rebellious, childish mood, he would have said Hannibal was 'rubbing off' on him.

“Let's go see,” Dennis said, his enthusiasm back with full force as he led them to the little office beside the entrance. It was nothing bigger than a broom closet, and contained a phone, a computer, a big, red handle that had 'alarm' written on it, and a pile of paperwork that was probably organized to whomever needed to work with it.

“Here we go,” Dennis hummed as he picked up a big stack of papers and cards of the desk and started flicking through them. Will made himself comfortable against the door frame as he watched him. It was a big, big, unorganized stack.

“No, no, no,” Dennis mumbled as his fingers worked through the papers, scanning every document for a label before his eyes did a quick flick up. “I am glad you healed so fast,” he said, licking his thumb before rubbing the papers loosely between his fingers. “...amazingly fast.” Will tilted his head as he studied him. He was a Poodle with the body of a German Shepard. One that tried so hard to keep his reputation alive. To not be that Poodle.

“Me too,” he retorted without necessity, as he pushed his hands inside his pockets. Dennis folded and unfolded every paper and card with much precision as he scanned the complete contents with his artificial blue eyes. Will wasn't in a hurry, which turned out to be a very good thing. 

“Just because you found your Alpha mate,” Dennis sighed as he blinked his eyes all over a calling card. “That's really cool.” He rose an eyebrow and looked at Will as if to ask for confirmation, but the Omega couldn't suppress a snort at the guard's phrasing as he imagined Hannibal's reacting to their connection and relationship being referred to as _'cool'._

_“It is the undefinable revelation of emotional, spiritual and physical baring, where the merging into a single soul, made from powerful, feral strength, beautifully painted love and endless connection brings us into the world as one, perfect being.”_

_“Cool.”_

“It sure has its benefits,” he answered the guard, and moved his eyes to his feet. Quick healing was not the only benefit he received from presenting Omega for Hannibal. It was not even his favorite one. He smiled when Dennis grinned his radiant teeth bare. “Yeah, you have, like, super powers,” he said, and this time, Will chuckled out loud as he ducked his head. Super powers. 

In a sense... He was stronger. His eyesight was beyond restored and his hearing went through walls. His sense of smell, the way his body adjusted... Yeah, he did have super powers. 

Dennis pulled him from his pleasant thoughts with words that pulled at his gut. “And he really just, came back to life, you know,” the guard said, cheeks ever so slightly flushed as he tossed an envelope in the bin. “When you came back.” 

Hannibal. 

Of course Dennis had witnessed Hannibal's suffering when Will was gone. Will swallowed hard as he wrapped his arms tighter around himself. He felt the guilt every time he looked at the purple scar on Hannibal's hand. Bone deep, with his own finger nails.

“Tell me,” he said, despite not wanting to hear the confirmation that he was wrong for leaving his Alpha. That he had hurt his mate with a selfish decision. Dennis stopped the movement of his fingers on the papers, as he tilted his head up, and look Will in the eyes. “I would sometimes bring him an extra newspaper or coffee,” he said, a little pale around the nose. “Just to make sure he was still alive.”

Will's breathing was deep and weak as his lips parted, and his eyes clouded. He felt a toxic web spun inside him by a most venomous spider. _Stop._ He begged, but the words never left him as Dennis continued. “His skin was gray, and he had those cuts on his hand...”, Dennis' grimace matched Will's as both men worked their throats and tightened their lips. “I'm not great with blood,” Dennis confessed but Will didn't hear him. Hannibal had been a prisoner inside himself. Trapped by pain and longing and grief.

“But when I came back...”, Will mumbled almost breathlessly as Dennis' eyes widened, before he lowered them back to the stack in his hands. “I don't...”, he said, pausing as he openly searched for words and ignored Will's eyes on him. His ear shells filled with blood beneath the tanned skin. “I turn off the screen, you know?”, he said, determination creeping into his voice. “I'm not allowed to do it, but I turn it off.” Their eyes met, as Dennis found the courage. “It's not right...”, he said, and Will swallowed hard before he offered a small nod.

It registered only now what Dennis was referring to. He had to watch them, day in and out. He knew everything about them that was transferable through camera or microphone. But he looked him in the eye and treated him like a human being. He behaved like one. 

Sadly, it was refreshing.

“I wouldn't want others to watch me,” Dennis added with a mumble as his fingers carted through the stack of documents that suddenly swallowed all his attention. Will breathed in deep as he studied the noses of his own brown shoes. “No one would,” he said with a sideway nod of his head, and watched Dennis watch him and then copy the gesture. 

“It wasn't like that, before you came here,” he said. “There were just... inmates jerking off.” Dennis' lips pulled down over his teeth. “Nobody cares about that.” Will pushed his tongue against the right side of his teeth and huffed a humorless laugh at the confession. Of course they were news. Entertainment. They were a live, X-rated prison show. 

“I turn off the screen,” Dennis repeated, his eyes rising back up to bring his message across with a pointed stare. “Whenever it's...” Will could see the guard breath deeply through his nose, and watched the black-clad chest expand. “...in some way, private.” And the blue contacts dropped again. 

Striking. The kindness of it... it was striking. An understanding of basic human needs and respected rights, beyond regulations and expectations, was hard to find. Will watched the blond, and racked his brain how to reach out and thank him. 

“I...”

But Dennis shrugged, and the moment was gone. “It still records...”, the guard said instead, cracking his voice on his way to continue his sentence, and Will's jaw tightened behind the skin. He was so tired of the sickening image of a bunch of grown men collecting around a monitor. “It always records,” he cut off the guard as he tightened his lips, and flexed the muscles of his arms beneath his shirt. Dennis' brown eyebrows only quirked as he huffed his response. “Yup,” he said, as he pushed two cards off the stack. “Except when the tape is full, and replaced with a new one.”

His eyes were on the documents, and he didn't see Will's straightening back, nor the intrigued descending of eyebrows. “You have...”, Will hesitated, feeling around for innocent phrasing. “...a lot to keep track of.” Dennis' lips formed a perfect circle as he looked at Will with those electric eyes. “Oh no,” he said, shaking his head until the blond strands shook before his eyes. “It's all automatic. Every day at midnight the tapes are switched,” he said, quite carelessly pleased, as if relieved the subject on extreme privacy violation was over. “It takes, like, five minutes or so for the machine to restart itself.”

“Oh,” Will replied, as he blinked at the young guard. Dennis wouldn't survive this environment. Not forever. He wasn't made for it. Will returned the smile the guard threw in his direction. “It's not that bad,” Dennis said, a sudden, easy confidence. It was a true part of his essence, if only damaged from a wall to a brick by life's cruelties. 

“It's a good thing I don't have to remember many things,” the blond confessed with a boyish smile. “I'm not great with that.” Will nodded with lips stretched tight over his teeth, as his eyes dropped to the very same stack of papers in Dennis' hands. He must have gone trough all of them, at least twice. 

“Wait,” the guard blinked confusedly at the stack. 

“What was I looking for again?”

**

Will walked the streets in the happy spring sun as he crossed the cheerfully green park with confident steps. In his pocket was Freddie Lounds' scarlet calling card, as well as a brand new slice of plastic Hannibal had been so kind to arrange for him. 

“Call my lawyer the moment you step out the door. He knows who you are,” the Alpha had said during dinner. Their feet had been bare, and occasionally found each other beneath the table. It made Will smile and Hannibal flinch with much exaggeration. The Alpha's body was always thrumming with heat and strength, whereas Will's smaller, paler feet were cold as ice against the soft skin of his mate. Hannibal didn't pull back, though. Never first.

“Why?”, Will had asked him as he shoved his macaroni-filled spoon into his open mouth. Hannibal had flinched again. “He will give you a credit card you can use,” he explained, as he stirred a fork through the pasta on his plate. He always liked to scold his prison meals for a good twenty minutes, before he would eat it all down with an empty stare in his eyes. The Alpha looked at him with amber, speckled with maroon. “It will be registered in your name.”

Will blinked before taking another bite of his mac and cheese. It wasn't bad. Just bland. “That... is...”, he stuttered, hesitating between chews as Hannibal brushed his big toe against his ankle.  
“I was going to say surprising,” he decided on saying, and watched his mate flinch when he returned the caress beneath the table. “But I am so far beyond that at this point.”

“Are you undead?”, the Alpha complained as he nudged Will's feet playfully with his own. “Your toes are the temperature of a corpse in the morgue.” Will laughed and pushed the sole of his foot right on top of Hannibal's instep before the Alpha shook him off with a hint of a smile pushing past his annoyance. Hannibal would know.

“You need money,” he said, as he speared a single macaroni on his fork. “I won't need much,” Will countered as he used his plastic knife to fill up his spoon. Hannibal had assured him Alana would provide him with a residence. He would need to eat, a toothbrush, a pair of clean underwear, but other than that...”

“Yes, I know,” Hannibal commented dryly before pushing the single piece of pasta past his lips. Disapproving before the taste had made contact with his tongue. “I am aware of your customary lifestyle.” Will narrowed his eyes at the comment as he swallowed the last spoonful of his meal, and pushed his chair back to leave the table.

“There is no limit on it,” Hannibal spoke as Will turned to bring his tray to the hatch in the door. “None.” He opened the hatch, placed the tray inside, and collected the plastic cutlery the plate. Before he could turn, he heard a mumble that forced an exhausted smile wide on his face. 

_“Just don't buy a dog.”_

**

The apartment was beautiful. The decoration was tastefully modern, the kitchen was stacked and the bed was freshly made. Oh, Alana wanted him gone alright. She was pampering him, hoping he would get a taste of the good life on the outside, before she would offer him a tempting job she would arrange for him at least two hours away from here. A teacher's job, a position at the animal rehabilitation center... 

Hannibal had predicted it, and Will had no doubt in his mind he was right. Alana was pushing him out.

There was a big living room with an open kitchen surrounded by glass walls that overlooked the blooming park. There was a bathroom with a tub and a shower, and a bedroom with a king size bed that looked like a cloud for the sweetest cherub angel. 

It only took Will ten minutes to look through the house, crack open a soda from the fridge, and whip out his mobile phone. “Phone call for Hannibal Lecter. This is Will Graham.” He could almost hear the eyeroll on the other side of the line. Gone for an hour, and here he was again like a lovesick teenager.

But Hannibal's voice was a velvet stroke to his soul, and he closed his eyes as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. “They gave me an apartment, right across the park,” he told the Alpha, who hummed against his ear and caused his skin to break out in goosebumps.

“Is it decent?”, the Alpha asked, and Will let his eyes glide over the suede leather couch, the big flat-screen TV and the double-doored refrigerator. “Very,” he said, and smiled as he heard the Alpha huff through his nose. “Good,” Hannibal said between stiff lips. “Now come back to me.” Will chuckled out loud at the playful plea that was indeed more plea than playful. He understood that feeling all too well.

“Soon,” he promised as his eyes drew back to the glass window where he could see the Hospital with a clear view. It hurt, having so many barriers between them. But he knew it was only temporary. He could walk back inside. It would take him little over ten minutes to get there.

“I can feel it,” he admitted, as he rubbed the soreness that spun through his neck. “The separation.”  
His eyes were focused on the gray walls of the old building and suddenly Hannibal's lips felt close enough to touch his ear shell. “Close your eyes.” The whisper caused a jolt that shook Will's body and he instantly knew what his mate was looking for. And he was eager, so eager, to join him.

He closed his eyes, turned himself inwards, allowed himself to fall into the swirl of colors and surrender to the pull that grasped him with hard and gentle fingers all at once.

“Yes.”

When he opened his eyes, he was in the kitchen. Chrome and black and wood. Hannibal's kitchen. Where he had spent many mornings and evening discussing cases while drinking beautifully brewed coffee and eating ridiculously outstanding meals. He had always loved dessert...

He stood beside the refrigerator, watching the pans on the stove boiling and purring, and he could nearly smell the delicious herbs and rich sauces that would fill the air whenever he would walk into the room. 

Behind the counter, he saw Hannibal, dressed in white shirtsleeves and slacks, and wearing his pristine white apron that was tightened on his back. His hair was a tad blonder, and an inch longer than it was now. His skin was more tan, his frame was stronger, but it was by no means anyone other than his Alpha mate. His eyes. His eyes were just the same.

He was standing before a cutting board, slicing what appeared to be a root of fresh ginger. “Hello, Will,” Hannibal said, smiling at him as he held up a sharp knife that reflected the kitchen light. An offer. One that Will took with a smile.

His hand curled around the handle as he came to stand beside his mate, shoulder to shoulder, and cut into the root with careful precision. Beside him, Hannibal had collected his own knife, and joined in from the other side.

“That's better,” Will sighed as he lifted his head and turned it to the side to meet eyes of honey and blood that smiled the same smile he felt pulling around his own mouth.

“Much better,” Hannibal agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!! ^.^
> 
> I am so sorry guys but I'm gonna take 2 weeks off because I'm going on a holiday with my family ^.^ Fingers crossed for nice weather! I am also gonna work on my story for Ravage in those two weeks, so I can focus 100% on Savage when I come back!
> 
> Also, I want some time to figure some things out with this story. I feel a lot of people are losing interest and I am getting more and more negativity and complaints from all social media angles, which sometimes makes it difficult for me to stay motivated. There is absolutely no one to blame but me, but I do have to scratch my chin, consider the rules of 'supply and demand' and wonder where to go from here. Maybe it is too long, or too slow....I don't know, but I'm gonna try and figure it out! I want to keep it interesting and still have my dignity by the end of it ;-) I so don't want to continue until everybody is like...Bleeeeh, whatever! :-P
> 
> Anyway, I am just going to try and recharge and see where it leaves me. Thank you so much everybody for reading and the support! I love you guys so much! See you in 2 weeks!


	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me kick this metaphorical door down,” Jack's voice broke through as he placed his coffee cup on the table. Will met the chocolate eyes as he folded his hands. Leaning back, just as Jack bent closer over the surface.
> 
> “They found him,” he said, voice hoarse, eyes hard, mouth sour. “The man responsible for those family murders.” Will watched dark eyes pulling hard at him as Jack leaned his elbow on the table. “They found the Tooth Fairy, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAYYY! I'm back, y'all!!! :-P With a bit of a tan, even! 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kind messages and the support during my holiday! It really helped me get through a rough patch with this fic, and I feel inspired to keep going in the same manner as I have been doing before! You can't win em all of course, but I really hope most of you will enjoy it!! ^.^ ;-) 
> 
> Sooooo, I'm done with negativity! and patching up my self-worth!! Onwards and upwards! Keep on keeping on....ehhh....yippie ka yee motherfucker!
> 
> Seriously, thank you so mcuh! With the love and support I was about ready to stop believing in myself, but this made my heart grow 3 sizes!! <3 <3 <3

The address Freddie had given him over the phone was located a fair twenty-minute bus drive from the apartment, where Will found the bowed-front row house squeezed tightly between its next door neighbors in a quiet street of Reservoir Hill. The buildings, in a long stretched alignment, were painted various shades of pastel colors, with Freddie's, coincidentally, a gentle shade of tangerine. 

Will looked at the arched window embellishments and the French curls in the iron balustrade of the steps to the front door. Columns awaited him like guards on each side of the oak wood and a bright, potted fern stood proudly beside a doormat that told him to be welcome. 

Will brushed a finger along the smooth lines of the baluster and allowed his eyes to run up to the small balcony that perched out from the first floor. He didn't need to see the inside of the building to know that this place was not Freddie Lounds' home, nor was it her office. It was too predictable in its vintage, dull civility. Too large in space and too little in privacy to be able to manage and oversee any delicate business, questionable possessions or valuable information. 

She had rented this place, most likely, until their deal was sealed, and the material was secure. She wouldn't let him him know where she lived and breathed and slept and bathed, because she didn't trust him not to come for her, the moment she had given him a name. Freddie Lounds was smart.

The weather was a gentle breeze that rustled the green buds in the trees and brushed back the curls from his face as he climbed the steps in jeans and a white, short-sleeved shirt. It had been so long since he had been able to walk out the door without a coat, and he enjoyed the warm strokes of the sun on his pale winter skin. 

On the quiet bus-ride over, he had been plagued with the thought that Hannibal hadn't seen the sun, felt the warmth, the breeze, the rain and snow for his long, long years in captivity. Will had seen the bleeding gums after the Alpha brushed his teeth, and he had witnessed the trembling of hands as he took a sip of water during dinner. Lack of nutrition and stimulation was hacking at the strength of the powerful man. Three years had weakened him. Ten, would surely eat him away. Something Alana must have set her hopes on.

He rang the doorbell and stroked a finger along the green fern as he listened to high heels on tiled floors before the door swung open before him. She had been waiting for him near the entrance, and no matter how bright and challenging the white smile behind red lips, or the confident curve of a single brow, Will knew that she was nervous.

“Will Graham,” Freddie greeted him with spirited enthusiasm and an ego so sharp he could almost feel it slicing through the skin across his throat. The pupils in her azure eyes tightened at the light that streamed across her pale skin, where freckles pushed beneath a perfect coating of foundation. He watched her, feet on the Welcome mat, and saw her watching him in return. 

“Well, time _does_ fly,” she remarked, as her lips pressed together with mocking mirth as her eyes rested on his temples, where he knew gray hairs had started to blend with dark, auburn brown. 

“Not of late,” he remarked dryly, thinking back of the past couple of weeks that had changed his life so much it felt like years had passed instead. Freddie looked at him with eyes that calculated, subtracted and divided, before she finally stepped to the side of the doorway. “Thank you for showing up,” she said, as if his actual appearance at their appointment was merely a pleasant side note. But the red nail on her index finger was bitten with blunt teeth and he hid his amusement when he saw the restless wiggle of her pump against the tiled floor.

“Follow me,” she said, and quickly turned herself when he stepped into the light, dull hallway. The walls were white and empty. The tiles were checkered black and white. This was not Freddie's home. “Is this your office?”, he asked, as he trailed after her fast pace. She was careful to keep a distance between them and he was left watching the bounce of her orange curls, smoother and more elegant than he had ever seen them.

“Since last week,” she said offhandedly, as he quirked his ears. Last week. A new arrival, and a fast departure. He watched the swing of her high-waist, teal skirt as she pushed aside a glass door that led them into another light, white, nondescript room filled with desks and computers. 

“Come on in,” she said with a wave of her arm, and to Will's surprise, there were four other people present in the large, stretched room that was a textbook example of a stuffy workplace, complete with file cabinets, a coffee machine and abstract, meaningless art on the walls.  
Two people, both male, ignored him when he stepped inside, of which one was speaking rapidly into his mobile phone. One blond lady nodded in his direction, and a large, dark-haired man sent him a polite wave. 

She rented an office. A shared working space.

Freddie had chosen this place to meet him, because Freddie did not want to be alone.

That was a problem.

Yes, Freddie Lounds was smart.

“We are all self-employed journalists,” Freddie said as she stalked to the desk in the far, far corner. “Except for Ralph Bloomer over there. He's a photographer, who also happens to be a martial arts teacher.” She pointed towards the dark haired man who had gotten up to start a battle of wills with the laser printer, and saw the broad shoulders and the bulge of muscles beneath his figure-fitting shirt. Will felt himself smiling at her efforts. She had thought of everything. Witnesses, bodyguards.....

_Ralph Bloomer._

“I see,” he said, as he stopped by the chair on the opposite side of her desk. Privacy amongst the people. She had been very thorough in selecting a space. In the corner of his eye, Will noticed the blond woman looking up to give Freddie the foulest look he had even witnessed in his life, and he wondered if they knew who she was, and what dirt she had smeared on their profession. 

The blond caught him looking, and flushed a bright pink as she quickly dropped her eyes to the keyboard of her laptop.

“Please, sit,” Freddie said with near hospitality, and Will dropped himself in the white, plastic chair. The backrest swayed and the legs buckled when he planted his weight, as Freddie sat in her desk chair across from him, gesturing to a thermos beside her monitor. “Coffee?” The machine by the door was ignored, and Will had no doubts the stuff tasted far beneath Freddie's standards. The fact that she offered him hers, was almost civil.

“Coffee and blackmail,” he smiled, as he allowed his ankle to cross his knee, and gripped his fingers around the bone. His eyes were lazy, distant amusement. The cat in the sun. His smile was bitter joy, outlining his lips and sharpening his teeth. And slowly, a plan began to form on the drawing board of his mind.

Freddie rose an eyebrow as she pressed her painted lips together. “Both served with sugar, if you like,” she said, and Will applauded her for her courage, even when the source of it was greed. Her candy red blazer hid the stains on her pits flawlessly, and he could see her forcing herself to keep her high-heeled feet steady beneath the desk.

“No, I don't like,” was his easy reply, his tone and expression unchanging as he tapped fingers rhythmically on his knee. Freddie's hand retracted, the coffee forgotten. 

“Well, this shouldn't take long,” she said, taking papers from a locked drawer. Around them was the constant buzz of typing, rapid phone calls, screaming printers and a purring coffee machine that drowned out their conversation to the world. “I've been so kind to draw you up a contract.” He took the sheet she handed him, with his eyes on the challenging curve of her red lips. Another page followed. “And one for Doctor Lecter, of course.”

One A4-sheet of pseudo-legal lingo, without a blank line to breathe. Freddie sat with her hands folded on the desk, waiting silently for him to read as her fingers danced across her knuckles. He humored her by glancing at her demands, intrigued to see just how far she dared to take it. Naturally, she didn't disappoint.

“A six hour interview, Freddie?”, he asked her disbelievingly as he watched her blazer-clad shoulders shrug. “Two hours each, and two together,” she said, as if her explanation made it reasonable. Her jaw locked behind the pale skin, and her blue eyes were large without blinking.

Will huffed, as his fingers traced the words. “You've written out poses for the photo shoot,” he huffed, flinching when he came across the term 'dime novel' and had a vision of Hannibal with hair down to his elbow, gazing at a swooning Will in his arms.

“Yes,” Freddie said, sitting up possibly even straighter as she tapped a nail to the surface of her metal desk. “I need 100% commitment from both of you on those.” Her chin bounced with a burst of short, sharp nods as her lips tightened with significance. Will eyed her with annoyance as he worked down the list of scenarios.

“Spooning on a single prison bed?”, he miffed, and Freddie sucked in her cheeks. “Underwear is optional,” she defended, as she leaned further over the desk to follow her statement with a: “Other attire is not.” Will scoffed at her boorish nerve, and smirked aporeticly at how quickly things had spiraled to madness.

“I am not kneeling at Hannibal's feet,” he told her bluntly as he looked sharply through his brow, where Freddie was watching him without a drop of humiliation. “Or he at yours,” she retorted with a shrug that made Will's lips stretch helplessly into a smirk that was all tooth and disbelief.

“Yes, _he_ might do that,” he said derisively, thinking of the time he had seen his Alpha on his knees before him, worshiping him in various ways. Hannibal's eyes had always sparkled with pleasure and devotion, but if Freddie thought she could get Hannibal Lecter on his knees for _her_ pleasure, she was not as bright as he had given her credit for.

_“Do you know who I am?”_ , the man with the strawberry blond hair in the corner suddenly yelled into his phone, and both Freddie and Will turned their head at the outburst. His tie was loose, his hair was sticking up and out, and his neck was an itchy red. “No one talks to Ewan Bergen like that.”

_Ewan Bergen._

Will sighed, and turned his eyes back to his paper. “Miss Freddie Lounds is allowed to use all the material, both verbally acquired as well as photographic, and may edit, add to and manipulate the material as she feels is necessary or warranted to create the desired outcome,” Will read out with a flat tone, before grimacing at all the possibilities that popped up inside his head.

Hannibal and him, half-naked and soft pink with fuzzy filters, as their mouths dripped with the illusion of blood. Or maybe the two of them dressed in suits before an altar made from skeletons and a headline that screamed of their _Unholy Union_. 

Maybe a dress..... 

Freddie had picked up a pen that twirled between her long, agile fingers. “You either sign it or you don't, Mister Graham,” she spoke lightly, as if the outcome was of little difference to her. “But I _will_ buy those tapes if you walk away from this offer.” Her eyes squinted along the rim. “There's always ways around the law, you see.” 

Azure was sharp like acid and ice, and Will could almost see a shimmer over her pale skin as her nails curled to her palms and her crystal voice lowered to a hum. “And trust me when I say you will never be able to find me when I do.” Threats, blackmail – delightful tools she had been packing in her purse her entire life. She had learned the skills, undoubtedly, as a small girl. The youngest of her siblings; her parents too easily manipulated. A character driven by ambition, individuality and a winner's mentality, rather than altruism. 

“I have no doubt, Freddie,” Will said with a tilt of his head. Undisturbed, as he took the pen she was holding out to him. “Sign yours now. Send me Lecter's,” she said, placing Hannibal's contract on his side of the desk. 

Will looked at his copy, seeing words like 'childhood', 'romance', 'homosexual' and 'conjoined killing' flash inside his mind before he clicked the pen, and signed his signature at the bottom of the page. 

_Will Graham._

“Good. I'm glad that's arranged,” Freddie said, spirit lifted by the progress of the agreement. Will dared to bet she had only half-expected him to show up at all, let alone place his signature behind her joke of a soft-core contract. But he nodded once, and folded Hannibal's page to place in the pockets of his jeans. 

“Send it to me when he's signed it,” Freddie said, brushing a curl off of her red blazer. “I will call you about the date, and you can arrange my visitors' pass to the hospital.” Will suppressed rolling his eyes with teenage dramatics. She knew how it worked. She had tried to get an appointment with Hannibal many times already, he was certain. Not once had she succeeded, but this time, she would have an invitation. 

__“And by the end of those three days, you will give me a name, and an address,” Will said, as he stood up from the wobbly, plastic chair. “I will,” Freddie agreed, rising to her own feet as she held out her hand to shake his. It took effort not to squeeze the tender flesh and bones inside his grip, but he didn't flex once around the breakable tendons and blue veins against his palm._ _

__He didn't need the name. The address was what he was after. The internet, the yellow pages, phone call to phone call, companies to publishers, he couldn't find the current residence of his little thieving Magpie. Freddie, he had no doubt, knew exactly where to find him._ _

__“Oh, God, I am so sorry,” he gasped as he turned and walked into the desk of the stocky-built man with a thick, brown beard. Papers jostled and stacks of cards fell over the top, as well as a large cup of cold coffee that splashed over the edge onto the man's leather boots. Will's hip bumped against the sharp edge of the metal surface as he tried to steady himself on the back of the chair. “Fuck.”_ _

__“Jesus man, look where you're going,” the bearded man grunted, his eyebrow low and annoyed on his forehead as he rolled himself to the side on his chair. “Sorry,” Will offered again, as he rubbed a hand over his bruising hip._ _

__In an instant, the blond woman came running with a large roll of paper towels, and spread them out beneath the desk. “You don't have to do that,” Will said, hissing as he pressed fingers to the blooming bruise. “Let me help.” The blond's cheeks flushed again, pink and sweet, as she turned her large, green eyes up to smile at him. “It's fine,” she assured him, as she gave him a pitiful look. “Are you OK?”_ _

__“Y-yeah,” Will stuttered as he watched the bearded man walk from his desk to the restroom in a swarm of low-muttered profanities. Freddie stood beside him, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, lips curled. “Thanks,” he held out a hand to the blond beneath the desk. “I'm Will.”_ _

__Pink became a full blush of red as she took his hand, and allowed him to help her up. “Rose,” she breathed, coming face to face with him as she smiled nervously, and her pupils dilated. Single. Mid-thirties. Ready to conceive. “Rose Hill.”_ _

_Rose Hill._

__“Thank you, Rose,” he said, before allowing a snubbing Freddie to lead him out. “Still as clumsy as I remember,” she sighed, as they walked the silent hallways. “Some things don't change.”_ _

__“Well, mister Graham,” Freddie said as she walked him back to the front door. “You might be more careful next time you leave sensitive information lying around your motel room.” Will turned to her as he stepped back out on the Welcome mat. “You never know who's snooping around, trying to make a buck,” Freddie smiled around closed lips, straightening herself in the doorway. “Next time, ask Jack to put you in a place with a little more class, and a little more privacy.”_ _

__She smirked, said her goodbyes and closed the door, and as he walked back to the bus stop, Will fished out a calling card from his back pocket to look at the name. The edges were stained with coffee, but he had been able to take one without getting noticed. His little scene had gotten him the last two names he needed._ _

__On the card shone a black, sturdy font._ _

_Bryan Mann._

__**  
As he waited for his bus, seated between an old, snoozing man and a mother with a whiny child that stuffed himself with banana after banana, Will's thoughts overflowed his skull like a clogged basin. _ _

__Freddie had told him something before he had paid his dues. She hadn't been able to resist._ _

_A place with a little more class. A little more privacy._

__His Magpie was not the only bird in the bush. There was another visit he would have to make._ _

Back on the bus, Will listened to the voice mail that blinked on his screen. _“Hello Will, this is Alana”_ , sounded her strained voice through the receiver. _“I just got a visit from Jack Crawford, who needs to talk to you about some police case.”_ Will's teeth pressed together behind tense lips. It was a long time coming. _“It sounded urgent so I gave him the address of your apartment. You can expect a visit from him soon.”_

__He pressed the button, deleting her insisting voice from his phone. Will knew exactly why the message sounded urgent. They had found The Dragon. They had found the Tooth Fairy._ _

__Jack's case was closed._ _

__He got off the bus, walked the distance, climbed the stairs and turned the key. Inside the room, he could see the familiar, large frame, the dark skin and the trench coat, crossing the park on his way over. The sand-colored fedora in his hand. Will watched him, and turned on the coffee maker. There was nothing to do, but wait._ _

__**_ _

__“You look better than I thought you would,” Jack said conversationally, sipping on bitter, dark roast as he sat at the round kitchen table. Will quirked an eyebrow as he sat across the FBI agent, elbows on the armrest. “...And to you,” he retorted caustically, and watched Jack's lips push at the reproach. Will knew the other man had heard about his near-death emergency, and had most likely expected to find him more... battered._ _

__“How are you feeling?”, Jack asked him, eyes on the coffee rather than him as he swallowed the warm liquid with a heavy throat. Will watched him, and knew the relationship, the unbalanced, parental dynamic the FBI agent had forced between them, was over. Jack couldn't trust him enough to use him anymore, and all that was left was disappointment._ _

__“Better than I thought I would,” Will answered, as he stared out over the park through the stretched window, and saw the bloodhound enthusiastically sniffing out a squirrel, high and safe in the branches of a blooming tree. Will saw the squirrel, watched it climb the branches and observed it glancing down at the dog, barking by the root of the tree. His eyesight was extraordinary._ _

__“Let me kick this metaphorical door down,” Jack's voice broke through as he placed his coffee cup on the table. Will met the chocolate eyes as he folded his hands. Leaning back, just as Jack bent closer over the surface._ _

__“They found him,” he said, voice hoarse, eyes hard, mouth sour. “The man responsible for those family murders.” Will watched dark eyes pulling hard at him as Jack leaned his elbow on the table. “They found the Tooth Fairy, Will.”_ _

__Even if Will had been good enough an actor, he felt no need to act surprised at the grunted words that left Jack's lips with passion, accusation and culmination. Instead, he sipped his coffee, and watched Jack fishing a brown envelope from the pocket of his coat, hanging over the back of his chair._ _

__“He was found in his home in Springfield, Missouri,” Jack said, as he opened the envelope and pushed two fingers inside. “But we were too late to catch him.” Jack pushed his hand inside the paper, retrieving a small stack of photographs, the sight of which made Will sit up straighter in his chair._ _

__“He was dead?”, he asked, without necessity. He had already been told. But to hear Jack confirm it, and to see it with the memory of a camera lens, was something he needed. Something he craved more than he had realized. The Dragon wouldn't come for him, or Hannibal, or Molly. The Dragon was defeated. The Dragon was dead._ _

__“Every single piece,” Jack spoke bitterly as he held the photographs in line with his own vision and swallowed down his open distaste. “Not all of them were still attached.” Will blinked, trying to hide his raging curiosity as he stretched his neck with impatience._ _

__“What happened?”, he breathed, and watched Jack shaking his head and drawing up his broad shoulders. “Apparent suicide,” he huffed rather unexpectedly, and Will's eyes flinched with a pinch of confusion. “Suicide?”, he mumbled, carting through every word he had shared about The Dragon's death. “Nothing else would explain it,” Jack scratched the short hair on his temple. “But I'm not convinced.”_ _

__Their eyes met, night and day, and at last, Jack pushed the pictures towards him on the table. “It's certainly the most unsettling suicide I have ever seen in my entire career.”_ _

__There was raw, bare skin, white and purple, bruises and blood filling every frame, and the images whirled together into color and shape. Will swallowed and briefly closed his eyes before he selected only a single image, and held it up before him._ _

__Transformed and glorious, he had become what he had desired to be. It was The Dragon._ _

__The Great, Red Dragon._ _

__“Francis Dolarhyde,” Jack told him, as he streched his arm to tap a finger against the mangled face in the picture. “Does that name mean anything to you, Will?” His tone was stirring, but Will didn't take his eyes away from the conversion born in the image he held in his hand. Hannibal had honored him in his wish to find what he had fought for. All the sacrifices made, had not been in vain. Not the pets, the parents, and not the children._ _

__He had found his destiny._ _

__“No,” was his honest answer to Jack. He hadn't known the man. He hadn't met the man. He had met the Omega, yearning to become something larger than himself._ _

__The Dragon was on the ceiling, arms spread wide and legs bound together. His skin was burned in several places, and in his eyes shone mirrors, stained with blood and blackened with ash. Behind his arms were wings, large and jagged and streched like those of a bat. A Dragon. The skin was tattooed, folded open from his back down to the back of his knees._ _

__“He was found hanging from the ceiling like this,” Jack said, as Will picked up a second photograph. It was a close-up of the battered face, and Will could see bruises from his own hands on the dead, cold flesh. “The man was heavily burned by fire, which he appeared to have lit himself, after he had poured an entire bottle of Whiskey into his mouth, nose and lungs.”_ _

__Will's shoulders shook with a shiver that burst from the back of his throat. A Dragon breathed fire. Swallowed fire, spat out the smoke and flames through nostrils and between teeth. He nodded briefly, as Jack continued. “In his stomach we found his own eyeballs and severed tongue,” he said, unable to keep the disgust from the words and Will flinched at the accommodating picture of what had been retrieved from The Dragon's body. Eye balls. He could not be judged with the mirrors in his victims' eyes. Now, The Dragon couldn't judge him in return, the moment he would come to claim him. Seeing himself, he would see Francis exactly for what he was. A Dragon._ _

__He watched the pink, thick muscle on the hospital sheet. A tongue. Never to speak again. He had left behind his humanity. Hannibal had told him this. Hannibal had wanted to honor the ritual, and punish the man._ _

__One phone call, and his death had indeed been self-inflicted. The acts, the decor, the design, however, belonged to another._ _

__“He placed those mirror shards inside his skull himself,” Jack said, picking up another picture, keeping it at arms length. “Never before...”, he scowled, and Will understood the sentiment all to well when he watched the exposed spine through the flesh-made, full-sized wings. “Christ,” he sighed, brushing a heavy hand over his own face. He was no virgin to homicide, but this was insanity in the flesh. This was demon worship._ _

__“It certainly got the job done...” Pictures found their way back to Jack, who picked out the image of the wings, and turned it right back to the Omega. “Look at these,” he demanded, his eyes so penetrative Will could feel himself arching back. “The wings remind me of someone,” he said, slicing his words through the spiced, vibrating air between them. “Don't they remind you of someone, Will?”_ _

__And Will looked at the picture, solely not to have to look at Jack's red-rimmed eyes. He too, had not been sleeping well. He too, was growing anxious, suspicious, mistrustful around his long-time colleague._ _

__“They are not angel wings, Jack,” Will stated simply. He knew what Jack was referring to, and the angel maker sure had been a case so visually stimulating that Hannibal must have allowed himself to be inspired by the work of a fellow, long departed artist. “They are Dragon wings.”_ _

__Jack's eyes burned bright with orange flames inside thick, stirring chocolate. His lips twitched, his hand clenched on the tabletop. “Who did this, Will?”, he said, thunderous noise behind the softly spoken words._ _

_“Tell me who did this.”_


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lecter did this,” Jack rumbled across the table before he walked over and tapped aggressive fingers over the images. “...and _you_ are protecting him.” The accusation was loud and thrown straightforwardly into the room, where it stretched with newfound freedom. Jack had been sitting on those thoughts for quite some time.
> 
> He was angry, rising on furious, but Will looked back at him with gentle eyes and lowered shoulders, and shook his head. “He's locked up, Jack,” he said, as he tilted his eyebrows. “He's no longer the monster under your bed.”
> 
> He blinked and watched hot coals burning from the depths of Jack's eyes as he rose his head, leaning both arms heavily on the tabletop. If Jack had been an Alpha, he would have growled. Will had no doubt about it. 
> 
> Will folded his arms over his chest as he turned back at the window, watching the thick clouds darken to gray. A promise of rain. “Or do you still have nightmares about the pantry?”

_“Tell me who did this, Will,”_ Jack forced his civility through clenched teeth as he pointed a hard finger at the picture of The Dragon's fleshy wings. 

Will looked at him with ocean eyes that rippled with smooth waves, countering the storm that whirled in the pools of Jack's unruly gaze. Jack Crawford was, among many things, an impatient man. He had grown accustomed to getting exactly what he needed from the world by puffing out his chest and lacing his booming voice with threat. 

But the world had flipped on its head, and it had all come down to a power match between the imperious bulldog, and the slippery mongoose. 

Will realized he enjoyed to play.

“Who do _you_ think did this, Jack?” he answered with eyes shimmering beneath low lids, latching on the special agent across him. Lazy, lazy, content cat. Too busy with gourmet food to ever catch that mouse. 

Will had always been unable to admit just how easy this came to him. How much he had seen and learned from his time shared both with Hannibal, and inside the minds of the psychopaths and murderers he had crossed in the field of his profession. He had always fit there so easily, while barely able to connect with the 'friendly smiles' of the outside world. 

And unbeknown to himself, he'd had time to polish and perfect what had always been hidden.

“His attic was a _shrine_ for some sort of demon monster.” The agent curled his lips against his teeth, and some of the old Jack broke out of the role of FBI agent as he scowled his disgust openly around his own words. It reminded Will of that good old temper that always lurked beneath the surface of the subjective, intolerant, powerful man. He still vividly remembered Beverly telling him he was out of his mind for talking back to the big man. Oh, how the room would cower under special agent Crawford's outbursts of anger.

Will hadn't been unaffected, then. Now, he pressed his fingertips together, and placed them to his lips.

“The Great Red Dragon,” he corrected him, and watched Jack's expression folding in around the tension that burst from his face. Spitting open fire as he clenched his fists on the table. 

“ _This man_ was an Omega,” Jack bristled loudly, and pushed both elbows out on the table as he straightened his back to made himself large and looming. “I know _he_ was the one who attacked you in Florida.” 

And Jack squinted his eyes, as if daring Will to deny it. To be shocked, cornered, outwitted by his former employer.

Jack needed that.

Jack needed his guilt, his confession, his remorse, his explanation. 

But the accusation was one Will had long expected, and he didn't flutter a lash at the brewing eyes, hot and dark like coffee. The link between him and The Dragon was easily made; Will had been attacked by another male Omega. Francis was another male Omega. 

That alone would suffice.

He sipped his cooling coffee with Sunday morning eyes on special agent Crawford. The man was a bulldozer. A bully without intent. Someone who wanted to do right by the world so passionately that he became the perpetrator. No decorum. No mercy. 

Endlessly scraping the barrel that was Will Graham, until absolutely certain there was nothing left to take. Only this time, the barrel had gone sour, when Jack had been so certain there would always be something left in there that belonged to him, and him alone.

“Yes, I know.”

Jack breathed in deep when Will answered him, as if trying to steer clear of the emotions of betrayal and indignation as he folded his large hands around his cup. “Yes,” he sneered, “you do.” Fingers pulled at a photograph, where the pale, ripped throat was clearly visible beneath the burns. “You got him good,” he grumbled, brushing a thumb along the deep bite. “He was already good as dead...” Jack gestured to the stack of pictures, exhausted exasperation dripping from his face like thick drops of sweat. “...when all of this happened.” 

He must have been. Will remembered tearing out his veins with his teeth so vividly that he could almost taste the burning blood in his belly. “He had multiple fractures, a ruptured artery...” Jack grunted, “the only reason he was still alive...” 

He shook his head, and Will took the liberty to finish the thought. “Because he was an Omega,” he said and remembered Hannibal's words to him: _“An unborn or infant child needs the protection of the Omega parent, however cruel the circumstances. **Your body can survive on the brink of death for years.”** ___

But The Dragon had been frightened. He had been afraid to die before he could complete his transformation. He had been desperate, and sought out guidance to find his completion. 

Jack sipped his coffee with a pained expression, as if it hurt him to swallow it down. “How long have you known?” he asked him, control fragile beneath the smooth tone of his voice. “How long have you known, without telling me?” There was danger in the hissed whisper, and Will watched the blood pumping beneath his temples, the drops against his hairline, the shimmer of the light reflecting on the moisture of his eyes. 

“How long have you known he was the Tooth Fairy, Will?” Jack rumbled, his voice staggering on his control. Will looked back, a garden withstanding the wild forest, drawn to the odd way Jack's veins seemed to wriggle with every move of his neck, making them appear like worms beneath smooth, soaked dirt. 

_**'BANG'** _

The fist that slammed on the table, shaking the entire room on its foundations, caught Will off guard. He straightened in his seat with an ungracious jolt as the loud baritone burst across the table. 

_“HOW LONG?”_

Fuck. 

They were back to this. 

Will pressed a hand to his stomach and forced himself to take a deep breath beneath those wild, earthquake eyes. Jack didn't frighten him, but he was certainly still able to make his bones rattle with these loud eruptions. He flinched at the thought of how Hannibal would have mocked him, had he seen him flash back into the role of the impressionable agent Graham. 

Will willed his heart to slow and pressed himself back against the backrest, as Jack watched him breathlessly from across the table. It appeared he had surprised them both. 

“Days, I believe,” Will finally answered him with a stroke of authenticity. “Time doesn't mean much to me anymore.” 

There was no point in lying. Will Graham didn't want to lie, or hide or pretend. He was no longer an empath without control over his path and emotions. He was an Omega. 

Jack cleared his throat. Dumbstruck by the answer, or perhaps the manner in which it was delivered. He looked at Will like a disappointed parent. Needing him to pass his exams, while never teaching him how to read in the first place. People were cruel, and Will had often been on the receiving end. A tool. 

Agent Crawford pressed his lips together. “Are you not on our side anymore?” he asked him, and Will tightened his mouth around his gums as he looked at the man who seemed ready to disown him. Jack had valued him in very specific ways, but Will hadn't shared the dependency. Jack had simply never realized it. 

“I'm in a land of my own, Jack,” he replied with a small twitch on his lips, as his fingers traced patterns on the scattered pictures. He had always fallen between the lines of society, and he had never been on any side. He had betrayed all. He had helped all. He understood all. 

_"You're a little different. But, you've always been a little different."_

But now, the land of my own had become _a land of ours._

__

Jack's teeth bit the back of his lip as he pushed his cup away and folded his arms on the table, leaning closer. “You always have been,” he grumbled, and watched Will with rueful eyes beneath the line of his brow. “There's Will,” he said, calm but grave, “and there is Will under the influence of Hannibal Lecter.” 

__

Will's shoulders twitched at the name, and the Omega on the porch in his mind flashed his teeth at the mention of his mate, colored with such accusation. Of course, Jack would blame Hannibal. Hannibal was the beast, and his own precious little songbird had been captured in the claws of the monster that had outwitted them all, so many times before. 

__

The songbird _he_ had entrusted with that monster to begin with. Jack Crawford had made that mistake once, and he was still paying for it, to this day. 

__

Never again. 

__

“You're losing your true self, Will Graham,” Jack told him, somber and solemn and leaning heavily on his elbows as he poured the warm grief from his eyes on to Will. “And I don't want to let that happen.” 

__

And Will watched him, paused, observed and pinpointed where true heart met theater. Both where there, and both were strong. Then, he smiled over his teeth, and curled his fingers against the table. “My _'true self'_ is based on your preferences,” he said, raising his hands to apply the appropriate air-quotes. “That doesn't make it true.” 

__

Jack seemed lost for words as he reached for the photographs, snatched them up and flung them back at Will across the table. “Who did this?” he demanded, smashing a flat, heavy hand against the surface. His eyes were twitching, his lips were tight. 

__

__Will picked up a photograph and waved it at the FBI agent. “You said it yourself, it's suicide,” he answered, before dropping the picture from where he had held it between two fingers. It fell, slipped, and carted right off the table beneath a chair._ _

__

They both watched it fall, before their eyes crossed again. “I'm sure I don't have to explain the concept to you, Jack,” Will said, dusting over mockery in a way that made Jack's whites push out with veins. 

__

“He couldn't have done this to himself,” the FBI agent hissed as he grabbed the photograph of the eyeballs and the severed tongue and held it up for Will to see. 

__

But Will reached for the picture, and took it from between Jack's fingers. “Don't you remember the angel maker?” he asked him, as he brushed a thumb over the blue and bloody eyes, heavily damaged by the gastric acid. “He did it, very nearly just like this.” 

__

__He flinched at the memory of how the hanging man had suddenly stepped down before him, hallucinated by his own brain on fire. And how he had seen himself in flames through the eyes of the man who saw sinners burn._ _

__

__Jack shook his head. “That man was sick. He was in this heightened reality where he didn't feel...” but Will interrupted, placing both his hands on the table. “We don't know what he felt,” he bit back, as his fingers pressed into the paper. To this day, they didn't know what the angel maker believed, or how he knew his victims were all people of terrible sin._ _

__

__“Just like we don't know what Francis felt, when he...”_ _

__

__Will paused, struck by the sudden vision of The Dragon hearing Hannibal's smooth tones against his ear, hypnotizing and guiding him through layers upon layers of hell, and hoping to come out the other end, triumphant._ _

__

__He wondered how many people the Alpha had 'guided' just like this, from the inside of his cell._ _

__

__“If you have enough determination, conviction, fixation and rage, the world will shape accordingly,” Will finished, and watched as another picture was grabbed by large fingers that crinkled the paper before it was thrown at him. It was the full display, The Dragon bound to the ceiling, eyes full of blood, mirror and smoke._ _

__

“This _screams_ Lecter,” Jack gritted, heating up as he shoved his hands against the side of the table, and pushing the furniture towards Will, who shoved his own chair back with his legs to avoid getting hit, while his fingers played with the creases on the abused photograph. 

__

“He's not the only melodramatic killer out there, Jack,” he countered as he watched the agent with squinting eyes. _Bad uncle Jack_. An FBI agent was not supposed to think like this, behave like this, or feel connected to the case like this. Jack was traumatized by their past, and even behind bars, he still wanted Hannibal punished for all that was wrong in the world. 

__

__Will wondered how many more lived their lives with Hannibal lurking in the back of every dark alley._ _

__

__Despite being locked away, however, it was true that Hannibal inspired many, and Hannibal had certainly inspired Francis. He hadn't needed to leave his cell to make art of death. The smooth tendrils of his voice and his penetrative mind had been enough to create his own painting, through the hands of another._ _

__

__The Dragon had asked for his help, and Hannibal had obliged. Hannibal had helped him descend, become, with torment and death as the payment._ _

__

__And The Dragon had paid._ _

__

__Will would almost have been jealous at the extraordinary connection the two must have experienced through that phone call, if the photographs hadn't revealed to him how Hannibal had made The Dragon cut the skin of his back to the bone. Baring nerves, without slicing them. Along the veins, without breaching the arteries. Hannibal had wanted him to be alive for as long as possible, because he had wanted him to suffer the ultimate death. He had wanted to punish him._ _

__

_“Your body can survive on the brink of death for years.”_

__

__Francis had still been strong. Strong enough to bind himself to the ceiling, like the angel maker. Strong enough to mutilate himself and swallow fire. It had taken him hours, maybe days, and he had lived through it all, for a long while._ _

__

__Will did not know the part Hannibal had played in this, but he had no doubt in his mind that he could create this image through a single phone call. Hannibal had agency in the world, but the main and most important part of it, was the power of persuasion. His own manipulative, charismatic, captivating dominance. The kind that opened your eyes to desires you never realized you had, until he showed you._ _

__

“In fact,” he said, shaking the image from his mind and pushing himself out of his chair as he turned, and flashed his eyes out the window. The bloodhound was gone. The squirrel was in the tree. “He is not _out there_ at all.” One foot moved over the fallen picture on the floor. “He was safely locked away when all this happened.” 

__

__Jack huffed, frustration thick beneath his skin as he stood up from his own chair, and clenched the backrest with his fingers. “I have requested the footage of Lecter over the days leading up to Dolarhyde's death,” he said, as Will watched the rustling trees. He remained silent, waiting for Jack to continue as he pushed his hands into his pockets._ _

__

__“He made a phone call,” Jack said, and Will's eyes moved along the cauliflower clouds to the roof of Baltimore Hospital. “To Francis?” he asked, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Jack didn't answer him._ _

__

__Because Jack didn't know._ _

__

__“What did he say?” Will asked, turning himself back to see Jack's knuckles light with pressure on the backrest of the chair. Their eyes met in full. “What did he say, Jack?”_ _

__

__There was a tortured twitch around those dark eyes, and their shared gaze felt like a smoldering hand on Will's throat. Jack looked away, down and to the side. Past Will, out the window, onto those same, cauliflower clouds._ _

__

__“The microphone didn't pick up on the conversation,” Jack admitted with open regret, as he gritted the white teeth inside his mouth and refused to pull his eyes from the blues and whites on the other side of the window. “He was speaking too soft and too fast.”_ _

__

__Will sighed. There was relief, even when he hadn't felt the threat. A reaction of habit. His shoe on the photograph pushed the paper beneath the leg of the table, stretching over the width of the furniture. Out of sight._ _

__

__“The conversation lasted close to an hour,” Jack continued, bending his head before pushing himself upright. He started pacing from couch to kitchen in the small living space._ _

__

__“And you can't trace the call?” Will asked, smug behind the questioning tilt of his head. Jack shot him a look made of ice-cold poison, and ignored the words as he stopped at the kitchen counter, where his fingers played with a roll of paper towels._ _

__

__“And you...” he drawled, ripping off a sheet to pick apart with his fingers. Nervous, anxious, endlessly powerless and scared as he burned Will with a stare that would have ripped a hole through him only a gentle three weeks prior._ _

__

__Accusation, conviction and punishment._ _

__

__Will wondered if he was going to be picking up snowflakes of absorbent paper from every surface by the time they were done._ _

__

__“...I was in the hospital,” Will replied impassively, “dying.” He watched Jack's eyes narrowing before he swiped his head back to the Omega by the window. “It doesn't sit right with me,” he forced through his angry scowl. Eyes were hot and skin shimmered in the clouded daylight, and Will had seen the larger agent like this so many times, he had started to look exactly like it in his thoughts and dreams. Whenever he thought of Jack Crawford, he pictured him just like this._ _

__

__A sly smirk pulled on his lips as Will folded himself over the backrest to shuffle the photographs with his fingers: “well, I can certainly imagine.” Goosebumps danced over Will's skin as he looked at the picture of The Dragon on the ceiling. Hannibal's design had always been for the purpose of art and beauty and poetry. This, however, had long burned up before anyone had found him. Perhaps the purpose of the fire had been to burn down the entire house, and it failed to claim the empty room around him._ _

__

__Nonetheless it was clear that what was done, had the intention of causing The Dragon to suffer a violent death, while simultaneously granting him his greatest wish. Salvation through anguish, almost like Jesus Christ himself._ _

__

“Lecter did this,” Jack rumbled across the table before he walked over and tapped aggressive fingers over the images. “...and _you_ are protecting him.” The accusation was loud and thrown straightforwardly into the room, where it stretched with newfound freedom. Jack had been sitting on those thoughts for quite some time. 

__

__He was angry, rising on furious, but Will looked back at him with gentle eyes and lowered shoulders, and shook his head. “He's locked up, Jack,” he said, as he tilted his eyebrows. “He's no longer the monster under your bed.”_ _

__

__He blinked and watched hot coals burning from the depths of Jack's eyes as he rose his head, leaning both arms heavily on the tabletop. If Jack had been an Alpha, he would have growled. Will had no doubt about it._ _

__

__Will folded his arms over his chest as he turned back at the window, watching the thick clouds darken to gray. A promise of rain. “Or do you still have nightmares about the pantry?”_ _

__

__Will heard Jack pushing himself up, breathing deep and unsteadily. He was the poked tiger in the cage. Will didn't turn, but watched the first flecks of rain brushing the window as a brown Labrador was leashed by his owner down in the park._ _

__

__It took the time for a young mother and her toddler to cross the street from the playground to the sidewalk below him for Jack to find his speech._ _

__

__“Have you thought about what I said, Will?”_ _

__

__Will swiftly turned around, watching the agent step around the table as he came to stand before him, and reached to place a hand on the Omega's shoulder. “There are ways to fight this connection.” Their eyes met hard, dark and light, both lit and endless. Jack smelled of the same cologne he had always worn, for years now, and Will wondered if Bella had been the one to pick it out for him._ _

__

__He then followed up by wondering what Hannibal would pick for him, if they'd ever make it out of prison. No ships on bottles._ _

__

_Fight this connection._

__

__He had tried to, with everything he had. Now, the idea was laughable. Like fighting the connection with your own beating heart._ _

__

__“I'm not having my brain cut out, Jack,” he said, remembering Jack's previous suggestion and smiled lightly at the grief in the agent's eyes, made from honest concern and the greed that came with the possession of Will Graham's mind._ _

__

__“There are other ways...” Jack countered almost instantly and Will wondered how many times they had had this conversation in the special agent's mind._ _

__

__“I die, without him.” The smile remained, but Will could feel his own eyes deepening at the memory of what life was like without his mate. He would die without him, in every way thinkable._ _

__

“There are _other ways_...” Jack pushed, framing the baritone words with his lips as he tried so hard to reach out with more than just his hand. _There are other ways around your life as an Omega. A life I would approve of._ That's what he said, beneath the actual words. 

__

“I'm not interested, Jack,” Will whipped, baring the truth as his nostrils fluttered. He wasn't walking away from Hannibal. Not anymore. The pain it caused them both to be separated... The way he already missed the scent of his skin and the sound of his voice after barely one night between them... He needed Hannibal. He _wanted_ Hannibal. 

__

“You've given up,” Jack said, his posture sinking around his bones as his eyes became larger with hardship, defeat and shame. _Shame._ Will remembered his relationship with his father and how his disapproval had always hurt his heart, more than the marks on his back. Today, disappointment and shame were nothing more than meaningless tricks. 

__

“Maybe I've given _in_ ,” he said and watched Jack through his fringe as the agent's fingers curled in on the flesh of his upper arms, visibly willing himself not to shake Will's body and hurt the Omega out of pure desperation. 

__

“You want this?” Jack spat at him. “You want to be his?” Will felt a sharp sting at the way Jack referred to his mate, shook off the hands from his arms and walked around the table. _“Do I want to be his?”_ he mimicked, offense deep in the curve of his tone. “Please.” He leaned himself side-ways against the counter, bringing his weight to his hip. “If anything, he's _mine._ ” 

__

__And there was a smile – a true, honest smile, that he couldn't suppress. There was a glow of warmth that was an unexpected find in his mission to make Jack Crawford cringe. He had wanted to punish the agent for his controlling behavior, but instead, he felt himself tingling with his own confession that made his eyes flash down to his tapping shoes._ _

__

____

__

__When he looked up, Jack had followed him and ripped right through the bubbly haze. Dark eyes black like roasted coffee._ _

__

____

__

__“This is Hannibal,” Jack scolded him, swallowing around a burning fury in his throat. Suppressing what Will could so clearly see inside the depth of his eyes. Jack was losing Will Graham to the dark. Jack Crawford had failed, twice._ _

__

____

__

__Jack Crawford was a bad, bad cop._ _

__

____

__

__“You know what he is,” he accused Will with a pained shake of his head, and the Omega felt his own, responding huff before it could be stopped. “Of course,” he said, a brief touch of mockery. “He is Lucifer. He is the Ripper. He's the Devil, Jack.”_ _

__

____

__

__The agent gritted his teeth with open lips as he turned to the table, and started reaching for the scattered photographs. “I'm not talking metaphors, Will,” he snapped as he took the brown envelope out of his pocket and stacked the pictures against the table._ _

__

“Neither am I,” Will replied effortlessly, and watched Jack freeze in his movement. He didn't know anything about Hannibal, other than what the Alpha had shown him. Will, however, knew the creases of his brain like no one had ever been allowed to, and he had long ago found something far beyond humanity on the inside of his mate. If Jack could stand here and claim to understand who Doctor Hannibal Lecter truly was, then all Will could do was stand here and laugh at him. 

__

“And yet you choose him,” Jack spat, as if the thought tasted foul inside his mouth. The pictures disappeared in his pocket. 

__

“There was no choosing to be done, Jack,” Will said, leaning against the counter with his arms across his chest. Eyes met. “It's what we were created for.” 

__

And in that moment, Will understood it more than ever. 

__

And as Jack took his coat and hat from the rack, and left him with a “goodbye Will. I hope this is our last encounter,” all Will could do was smile at the wounded Captain Jack; always on a mission to recruit him, or save his soul - to recruit him again. 

__

He watched the door closing with a bang, before he walked back to the window, and watched the man go. He hurried through the falling rain, with his Fedora on his head. 

__

“Goodbye Jack.” 

__

____

__

The lost photograph was retrieved from under the leg of the table. Crumbled, smudged, but still a clear image of The Dragon on the ceiling of his attic. He studied it, touched it with his fingers, and imagined it behind his eyes. Something was roused inside Will every time he looked at the dead, mangled face of his rival Omega. 

__

Punished. 

__

Destroyed. 

__

Because of him. 

__

Will plucked the phone from his pocket and dialed the number with one press of the button. 

__

_“Suicide?”_ he scoffed, when the familiar voice brushed his ear like a drop of thick, sugary syrup. 

__

“Close your eyes,” Hannibal hushed him. 

__

And when he did, Will was back in Hannibal's office, where he watched long legs in a tailored, plaid suit of navy blue and Chelsea gray, sitting in the chair across from him. 

__

He smiled at his Alpha, and his Alpha smiled back. 

__

“Hello Hannibal.” 

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohh thank you all so much again for the wonderful support!! I wIll reply to all the reviews, I promise it so super hard!  
> And what I also promise super hard is plenty of the beautiful Hannibal in the next chapter! ^.^


	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He put his hands on you,” Hannibal bared his teeth as he pressed his fingertip to the metal core of his chair. “He has threatened, and hurt you.” His jaw clenched and their eyes met with heat scorching in angry eyes, dark as blood and dirt. But Will rose an eyebrow as he bit a fang into his lower lip.
> 
> Yes. All of it had signed Francis' sentence. But for a man whose trademark was bone-deep control, and an ever steady hand for punishment, something must have caught Hannibal off guard.
> 
> Hannibal was a man of class, taste, and luxurious simplicity. But the chaos left in the attic was one of outrage, rather than design.
> 
> It was something The Dragon had told him.

The scent of the books, the feel of the leather and the glowing warmth of the crackling fireplace; it was so vivid he could skim over the sensation, as if inside a most animated daydream. The memory was savored inside both of their minds to the smallest detail. 

Will looked at his mate, and felt the angry ache inside his core soothing from a tight knot to a silk wave. Hannibal was golden, ash blond and sun-kissed. He was strong and radiant and styled from the roots of his hair to the tip of his polished, leather shoes.

“Hello, Will,” the Alpha greeted him, affection and longing coloring the words as he sat comfortably across from him in the familiar leather chair; legs crossed, hands folded in his lap, back fully against the backrest. Those eyes were blown to honey, and Will wished he could feel them pouring over every inch of his naked skin.

“Did uncle Jack pay you a visit?” Hannibal asked him pleasantly, as Will's lips twitched into a crooked smile. Seeing his mate, even solely in this shared location in their minds, was a bath of pure crystal water on his overheated flesh.

“How did you know?” he challenged, as he leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed two fingers up the bridge of his nose. “Is his stamp of shame still slapped to my forehead?”

Hannibal smiled, but his eyes grew dark with intent as he brushed his gaze over Will's throat, down to his chest. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, gentle like the small waves of the ocean, covering the great white shark underneath. 

Will pressed his hands together, and placed his fingers to his lips. “No,” he replied, “he didn't,” and watched his Alpha's eyes shine like diamonds in the light of the fire. 

He was happy, here.

Will's lips jerked with the idea of telling Hannibal about the way Jack had shoved the table in his direction, or how he had squeezed the muscles in his arms. The way he had thrown those photographs at him across the table...

It wouldn't be easy to get Jack to tie himself to the ceiling, but he was certain Hannibal would make it work.

“Did you see it?” Hannibal then asked him, an unhidden flash of pride in every crease of his face – considerably fewer here, than in prison. Will huffed, fumbled with his fingers, and watched the photograph appear from where he was holding it inside the apartment.

The picture of The Dragon on the ceiling, with wings made from flesh, and eyes of mirrors. 

Their eyes met, and Will bit one fang into his bottom lip. A sparkle of impudence, open on his face. “This borders on... camp,” he huffed, as he held out the picture for Hannibal to take from his fingers. The Alpha reached, and the ghost of his touch grazed Will's thumb.

_God._

Will knew he couldn't touch him and make it feel as real as an actual physical connection, but he still swallowed hard against the shiver that ran down the nerves along his spine, and suppressed the urge to throw out both his pride and plans, and climb the Alpha's lap.

Hannibal's lips pursed in offense as he admired his own work for, what was likely, the very first time. “Mythical, I'd rather you say,” he retorted, as his fingers smoothed out the edges. “Although I'm sad to see he ruined my design with fire.”

Will's eyelids lifted into the hollow of his sockets as he took his elbows off his knees and straightened in the chair. “That wasn't you?” he frowned and watched Hannibal's disgruntled shake of his head. Sulking, because his work of art had been ruined before the grand opening. 

“He did that on his own accord.”

Will rubbed his hands along his inner thighs with a light chuckle. “I knew it,” he said, self-congratulatory. “I knew it was too overzealous to be yours.” His teasing smile touched Hannibal, and he watched his Alpha's eyes gleam from sour to satisfied.

No, Hannibal's work was always clean-cut, to the point of sterile.

The ashes, the burns on The Dragon's skin, and the scorched flesh inside the damaged mouth; it had stopped the blood from flowing, ruined the expression of contorted muscles on his face, and blackened the mirrors in his eyes. Fire could have burned the ropes and sent him crashing to the floor, and everything could have gone up in smoke: the art, the meaning, the message, would have been erased. He should have known from first sight that this was a blemish, a stain, on a true Van Gogh.

“Maybe he hoped it would speed up the process of dying,” Will said, running his tongue along his teeth. Cheating, Hannibal would call that. The Dragon was lucky he hadn't survived.

“I'm sure it has,” Hannibal spoke evenly, as he placed the photograph on the side-table and folded his hands back together in hips lap. Perfectly still, perfectly controlled, with nothing but the cool amber of his eyes to betray that his Alpha was thoroughly _miffed._

“You were angry,” Will said, copying Hannibal's posture with a hint of mockery. His legs crossed, his hands folded, his back straight, and a challenge in his eyes. “And you still are.”

There was no humor in Hannibal's gaze, darkening to an earthly maroon, as he tightened his lips and avoided Will's eyes. “I can't possibly describe what happened inside of me on that day, Will,” he then said, his hoarse voice almost timid, and with this, Will's laughter was crashed by the waves, and replaced with a dark, deep yearning. 

He watched his mate across from him, trapped inside the dark aura of his memories, and wanted nothing more than to fold his arms protectively around those plaided shoulders, and replace the pain with warmth, and touch, and promise.

“I understand,” he said instead, because even if Hannibal couldn't describe it, Will could so clearly imagine how the threat of his Alpha's demise would cripple him. “He almost killed me.” He understood, just by the look in Hannibal's eyes, that his mate had felt him dying, injured, lifeless, and he had lived through cruel brutality, until Will had been back by his side. 

Hannibal stayed stoic in his seat. 

“ _For that alone,_ he deserved an eternity in my company,” he said, and before the words had left his lips, the walls around them curled up like smoke. 

The office, the books, the fireplace disappeared before them, until they found themselves in the pristine, opulent darkness of a basement.

Black as coal. Brick, steel and glass.

The chairs remained, but what surrounded them here were brick walls without windows, and chains with heavy shackles, trapped in solid stone. There was a working bench, circular and compass saws, knives and bolts, a single axe, and a large, vertical, built-in freezer. 

Will watched it all with large, puzzled eyes, before he looked back at his Alpha mate. 

But Hannibal didn't seem fazed by the new surroundings, nor did he look around to take in the room. He knew exactly what he would find, Will realized. His Alpha had taken him here, a place outside Will's own memory, to show him the basement inside his Baltimore home. 

Hannibal's notorious basement.

His mate only turned his head to rest his gaze on a large, metal door inside the wall. Black, and almost untraceable against the bricks that surrounded it. “Had I been out, that is where he would be,” he said, and Will felt a tremor running up between his shoulder blades. He'd never seen this place before. He had never been a part of this world. 

His mate had lived that life behind the veil.

The thought brought Will a sudden, painful sense of longing to reach for Hannibal and find everything hidden, or unrevealed, inside. He wanted, he needed, to know all of it. All of him. Even this.

Hannibal's smile was not one of joy, but a wishful, melancholic kind of greed, as he looked at the door and flexed his fingers on the leather. “I would have fed him to my beautiful collection of Powelliphantas,” he spoke longingly, and the Omega felt his mouth go dry at the sight of his Alpha's desire, shimmering ruby in the gold of his eyes. 

Well...

“Feed The Dragon to the snails,” Will breathed between moist lips. It was beautiful. Humiliation. Duration. Torture. Hannibal would have lasted him years. 

The Alpha released a soft chuckle, and turned heavy-lidded eyes back to Will. “I would prepare them for you, after they had their share, and I would watch you eat until your belly was full and your cheeks were flushed with satisfaction.” There was a lingering huskiness to his tone, spoken on a wave of breath, and Will felt his own lips parting as he stared back at his mate, captured by the painting of his desire.  


“Oh.”

Disturbed. Aroused. Disturbed again.

He inhaled, and felt his own hands tightening on his armrests as his gaze shimmered boneless on the outline of his Alpha mate, surrounded by the echoing darkness of the basement.

Hannibal's chest rumbled low beneath his ribcage as he stroked Will with the fantasy that lived inside his secluded mind. “I would plant a young Physalis in his empty sockets,” he hummed, as if reciting a letter of deep, romantic love by the light of a dying candle. Will blinked his eyelids, as he watched his Alpha losing himself into his own illusion. “And bring in a selected arrangement of moths, ready to emerge from their chrysalis.” Hannibal closed his eyes, swaying to the music he created with his words, as Will swallowed at the gruesome direction his mate was taking them. “They would lay their eggs...”

Eggs. Moths. Plants growing roots in sockets....

-”Yes,” Will slid in, parting the sentence with one, choked word. “I get where you're taking this,” 

At this, Hannibal's eyes sprung open. He looked disrupted, as if Will had turned off his show, right before the big denouement, and Will tried to resist the grimace that pulled taut over his teeth when his mate's lips narrowed, and his eyes licked flames across the darkness.

Hannibal was lost in his art. His passion to bring life to his creations, and death to his offenders. The absence was as much a void for him, as it was for Will to imagine a life without the company of dogs. Not a necessity for survival, peace, or even happiness, but certainly something that added color and beauty and reason to existence.

Hannibal wanted Will to know that part of him. He wanted to show him the process of destruction, for the purpose of creation. He wanted for Will to listen, to see and to share. To allow himself to feel what Hannibal knew he could feel with his hands around a breathing throat. He wanted to know that the only person who could possibly understand him, was willing to do so.

And Will wanted to know everything. 

Just, maybe, not all at once.

“Am I making you uncomfortable, Will?” Hannibal derided with a careful, sly smile, as his eyes studied his mate with careful energy. He was trying to read him for honest apprehension. 

Disgust. Fear. 

His smile widened, when he didn't seem to find any.

Will simply scoffed, closed his eyes and rubbed a hand along his cheek. “In various ways,” he admitted, trying to suppress the hot stir in his loins at the way Hannibal's throat bobbed with fervor, and desire. “You never disappoint,” Will told him, a playful pinch beneath his honesty as their eyes met in a gentle slide of liquid gold and silver blue. 

“I wish I could tell you the same,” Hannibal said, as he uncrossed his long legs to place both feet firmly on the stone floor. 

Will remained steadily in his seat, as his blood pulsed inside his ears. 

Oh yes, Will had disappointed him, time and again, and unforgivably so, but here, there was no spite to way the words curled from Hannibal's tongue. Instead, there was a game in the way he leaned his elbows on his upper legs and placed fingers to his lips. 

“Your absence from my cell disappoints me,” the Alpha hummed, as his eyebrows drew high and his eyes pushed wide. 

Will's memory recalled the first time he saw the Alpha sit just like that, where Hannibal had ensured him to be his paddle. Hannibal _had_ been his paddle. He had also been his Captain, his anchor and his lure. And in the very same breath, Hannibal had sunken his boat, and burned the life-jackets.

And Will huffed, smiled, exposed his teeth, as his lashes fluttered against his cheeks.

“My absence from your bed,” he corrected, as he rose one, challenging eyebrow and spread his hands against the armrests. 

_Jesus Christ._ It was out before he could stop himself. Plaid wearing, lecture giving, socially aversive Will Graham; _fucking flirting_ , in a torture basement, with the man who had already had him upside down in ever corner of his prison cell.

“And my bed,” Hannibal was quick to admit, his features alive with a pleasure made from both amusement, and lust, and Will felt the room around them growing warmer, humid, as the Alpha blinked slow lashes over the honey in his eyes. The air filled with a distant buzz that vibrated over Will's skin like trickles of warm water, and suddenly, he was very aware of the clothes that rested against his heated skin.

_Oh._

Will flashed his eyes to his right hand, where his fingers tapped into the softening, heating leather. 

_No._ Not here, not in this basement. 

He longed to touch his mate, as he always did, but not where Beverly had found her death, and where Abigail had been hidden away. Where Abel had been chopped, prepared, and fed, one limb at a time.

“What else did he do?” he asked Hannibal, openly deflecting as the temperature around them dropped back to _room_. 

The Alpha seemed to accept the change of topic without a blink of his eyes, and Will's nose twitched with a pinch of content at how his mate didn't need an explanation to emit understanding. He was learning, and he was changing. He looked at the world beyond his own. He understood, and improvised.

For Will.

He watched his Alpha tilt his head in curious question.

“You said, _for that alone_ ,” Will explained.“What more than trying to kill me, did Francis do to make you this enraged?” 

Because Hannibal had always been precise, and never spared his victims any form of suffering within that precision. But this time, the rage seemed to exceed the art.

Francis had started the fire, but the severed tongue, the swallowed eyes,... Hannibal had done these things for the purpose of internal suffering, rather than illustration. Uncommon, for his mate.

Because Will knew his Alpha. Hannibal had known Will was in the hospital, and there had been plenty of time for him to reflect and plan, and shape his revenge. A dish best served cold. He lived by the rule of perfection beyond emotion, and the only time Will could imagine Hannibal being caught in a flare of uncontrolled anger, was when it was induced during the time of his crime. 

_Rage._

And that rage had wanted to take those eyes from their sockets, and the tongue from his mouth, superseding the purpose of poetry.

“He put his hands on you,” Hannibal bared his teeth as he pressed his fingertip to the metal core of his chair. “He has threatened, and hurt you.” His jaw clenched and their eyes met with heat scorching in angry eyes, dark as blood and dirt. But Will rose an eyebrow as he bit a fang into his lower lip.

Yes. All of it had signed Francis' sentence. But for a man whose trademark was bone-deep control, and an ever steady hand for punishment, something must have caught Hannibal off guard.

Hannibal was a man of class, taste, and luxurious simplicity. But the chaos left in the attic was one of outrage, rather than design.

It was something The Dragon had told him.

“What did he say?” Will asked, basking in his own ability as he licked his lips, and brushed Hannibal's eyes with an all-knowing confidence he had quickly learned to grow. With Hannibal, he understood the world.

But the Alpha didn't share his spirit, as he watched Will with a sudden distance in his glistening eyes. The warmth turned colder, and Will felt the deeply founded offense that boiled in the center of his mate's sharp skull.

There was a moment of thick, silent darkness, before Hannibal's words flowed like an eerie wind in the deserted night. “He said he didn't find you handsome.”

_Click._

Will blinked, and felt the sensation as if someone had just turned on the bright, fluorescent light during a candle-light dinner. Suddenly, the dark basement fell away, and they were back in the office. Chairs in their proper place, and fire dying in the fireplace. Light streamed through the tall windows, in the weak, cold, gray promise of autumn.

Will looked at Hannibal, lips sucked tight against the Alpha's pointed teeth, and sat up on his chair with his back from the rest. “What?” he grunted through a bewildered frown. 

Hannibal crossed his legs, rose his chin, watched him down his straight nose. He looked violated by his own words.

“That is what he said,” the Alpha snipped, refusing to repeat the statement as his eyes remained a cold and forgotten, strong yellow tea. 

_He said he didn't find you handsome._

“Oh.” Will didn't mean to do it, but a huff pushed from his throat with a tickle of laughter.

_For the love of..._

How he wished he had been there for that conversation.

After the fight, leaving them both on the brink of death, Francis had called Hannibal and had asked him for his guidance in the process of transformation, during which he had, apparently, also let it slide that he didn't find Will handsome. To this, Hannibal had responded with, as Will could so beautifully imagine, cold, professional detachment, while his raging mind sketched a few additions to his pre-made design of The Dragon's destruction.

And he made him cut out his tongue.

“How did he say it?” Will asked, his smile lazily breaching into the territory of teasing as his eyelids lowered to match his mate's. Hannibal watched him, those folded hands unmoving on his lap, those long legs immobile, those brows drawn deep, those nostrils open wide.

And he didn't speak. Instead, a memory of sound suddenly echoed between the walls of the office, as the fragile voice of a weakened Dolarhyde suddenly buzzed against his ears.

_“Will Graham was most interesting to me. Odd-looking for an Omega. Not very handsome, but... purposeful.”_

The voice died. Strange, hollow, in the present of their memories. What was left was the cold daylight, harsh on their features as they watched the small specks of dust dancing on the rays of the sun.

Will looked at Hannibal, a face taut with injustice, and felt a deep spark of endearment. 

“Well,” Will breathed, betraying mirth in the way his lips tightened in an attempt to keep them straight. “That _was_ rather uncalled for.” He folded his arms over his chest, “You should have severed him one toe at a time.”

Hannibal breathed deeply through his nose, before he switched his legs in position. The deep lines on his face were the expressions of a proud man's pout, and Will would love to laugh and kiss away the furious disapproval he saw on his lover's face. 

The things that concerned him, and the things that didn't... there was no straight line in sight.

Will knew Hannibal despised rudeness in any form. And he knew Hannibal loved him. The combination of both within such negativity had scraped nails over very agitated flesh inside the Alpha's soft belly.

“Which is exactly my point.” One hand was offered up, as if the answer balanced on his palm, and Will watched his mate rising graceful from the leather. He stretched out the plaid legs, tailored to fit his body cruelly slim, before walking to his desk. Gaze inwards, arms stiff, openly disgruntled.

“I can't say I'm offended.” Will bit down on the corner of his widely stretched, bottom lip. “I'm sure _he_ wasn't filling many seats,” he joked heartily as he pushed himself from his own chair, and trailed his feet towards the wall, the pillar, the statue of the bronze Stag. 

He touched the solid, smooth metal with his fingers, as if petting the beast that had haunted his dreams for so many, many nights. 

Above it hung a small drawing of a young Asian woman, framed with thick gold. His reflection was visible in the glass, and he was surprised to see his hair was shorter, his face looked younger, and his glasses were perched upon his nose. He hadn't felt the frame, but he looked the spitting image of the man he had been, years and years before today, when he stepped into Hannibal's office for his weekly visits.

His cheek was unmarred, but when he reached for his face with his lifted fingers, the mark was there under his touch. “Not handsome...” he grunted at his own reflection. “....he sure didn't help.” He wiped back his long curls, and saw his short strands fall around his face. 

It was a most odd ordeal, feeling reality inside a daydream. 

“It is very ill-mannered and despicably false,” Hannibal grunted from behind him, and Will turned to see his mate beside the desk. One hand flat on the surface, the other clenched by his hip. He was smooth and slender and his hair was made from golden silk that touched the tan on his forehead with delicate admiration. 

Hannibal's lips stayed tightened, but his back was straight and his posture flawless. “He was rude without any purpose or gain,” he said with open distaste, as if he couldn't think of a greater offense. “It was to taunt me,” he bit, as Will watched the internal struggle playing out before him. “But I have yet to discover to what end.”

Rudeness. Hannibal despised it. Because to Hannibal, it was always, always, personal.

Will stepped forward, closer to the desk, as he reached for the flat hand on the table to cover with his own. Hannibal watched his movements, as their fingers curled together. “To no end,” Will said, smiling slyly as Hannibal turned his amber eyes to him with an edge of agitation. But Will squeezed the hand between his fingers as he rested his hip on the side of the desk. “There was no taunting, Hannibal,” he said, a chuckle pressing beneath the words as the Alpha's eyes darkened. 

“It was an observation.” He drew forwards, and brushed his nose beneath the Alpha's tense chin. “Opinions may vary on the subject of beauty.” Will inhaled a scent that lived inside his memory, and hummed when Hannibal moved into his touch. Will felt his mate pressing closer, as he led his body to turn some gentle degrees, until his ass came to rest fully against the desk.

Will pulled back, and smiled at the warmth that had awoken in the familiar, golden swirl. “It's in the eye of the beholder,” he whispered, releasing Hannibal's hands to bring both thumbs up, framing the light eyebrows on his Alpha's face.

Hannibal savored the touch with closed lids, as his hands came to hold Will's hips. “I'll take the eyes, if they offend,” he warned with a gentle growl, before he grabbed hold around the swell of Will's ass, and lifted him onto the desk. Thighs between thighs, hands brushing hair from eyes.

Will couldn't feel the warmth of his mate's skin against his, but he could imagine it with true enough precision to whimper a pitiful desire for more. Real. Hannibal's eyes stirred with that hot honey that soothed any rough edge inside. “From the moment you walked into my life, I was instantly bewitched by your raw, exquisite beauty,” Hannibal breathed against Will's cheek, and the Omega parted his lips at the heated words. His eyes closed, and lashes brushed against his Alpha's cheekbone. 

“...and I remain it to this day”, fingers trailed along the back of Will's neck, up and down the bones. “Until forever.”

Their lips hovered but didn't touch, and Will pressed his forehead against Hannibal's temple. “As bewitched as you were by my _raw_ personality?” he scoffed, teeth bare against the skin of his Alpha's smoothly-shaved cheek.

The skin was soft and supple with lotion, aftershave, hydration. He remembered those days. A sharp tooth grazed the top of Will's ear as hands came to frame his waist. “That, too, was instant,” Hannibal hummed readily into his hair, inhaling deeply in the curls he would only smell from the memory of Will's brand-less shampoo. “...and provided me with a bit of a challenge.”

Will breathed in deeply through his nose, and felt his body going slack in the near-embrace, as Hannibal nuzzled shamelessly against the lines of his face. Beneath the pressed suit and shirt, Will heard the gentle purr like the steady rumble of a refrigerator at night. It had been there all along, but only if you listened for it in the silence, it became noticeable. Then, it was impossible not to hear it any more.

“Until this day.” Hannibal slid his nose over Will's smiling cheek, where the fresh scar was no longer traceable. “Until forever.” 

But Will felt the raised tissue with his own fingers that followed after his mate. 

_He was marred._

Their eyes met, and the Omega felt the air stutter in his lungs.

_Until forever._

“I have never been a vain person,” he admitted, and grimaced at the clear line that dipped and rose beneath his touch. He never had been. He hadn't cared about his clothes, his hair, the dogs' fur on his coat...

But the scar was a permanent damage to his face. A violation that would last a lifetime, while his mate was a strong Alpha with hair and skin and eyes that had made the world unwilling to see what was served up on their plates. 

“Maybe your traits are blending with mine,” Hannibal's lips smiled against his cheek, before the Alpha pulled away.

Their eyes met, and Will was surprised to see the Alpha look a little... disheveled. He had been so displeased with the memory of The Dragon, that he had nearly stomped his feet with injustice. Maybe traits were blending back and forth; bringing Will a slice of desired control and a pinch of vanity, and Hannibal the experience of human emotions, experienced and expressed.

Hannibal smiled, as his hands came to frame Will's face. 

“Come back to me,” he uttered, as his mouth came to rest on Will's and fingers wound in the curls behind his ears.

“Almost,” Will promised, before he touched his open lips to his Alpha's, and pressed them into a soft, lingering kiss that felt warm and right despite the barrier in true physicality.

The press of skin was light, but the pink pleasure that stroked Will along every nerve was enough to make him moan into the soft, familiar lips.

When he opened his eyes, the office was gone. 

Instead, he was sitting on a most familiar table, inside a place he had been calling home for several weeks. 

They were back in prison, inside Hannibal's glass cell. 

“Oh.”

Will blinked rapidly as he looked at the dull space that surrounded them, and Hannibal's eyes flashed through the room with equal surprise, as if looking for irregularities inside the predictable sight. They were both dressed in prison jumpsuits, and Hannibal's hair was, yet again, short and silver on pale skin.

The Alpha straightened himself between Will's parted legs, and Will reached to touch five experimental fingers to the center of Hannibal's clothed chest. Were they...? No. The touch was not solid. The heat and the scent were not from a direct source. They were still inside their minds, together.

“I said _'almost_ ',” Will frowned, and leaned himself back on his arms to give his mate a confused blink of his ocean eyes. Hannibal huffed between the crooked smile that pushed upon his unimpressed features. 

“ _You_ took us here,” he accused, before licking his lips, and bending himself back over Will's stretched-out form.

“Fuck,” Will gasped, as Hannibal pressed a wet kiss beneath his earlobe. “I was only thinking about being back here with you.” He pushed himself up, and Hannibal countered his movement by straightening himself until Will could sit up. One hand framed the side of Will's neck, and the Omega released a deep sigh as he leaned into the steady touch.

“But not here, like this.”

He didn't need to explain to Hannibal what it was he meant, because the Alpha growled an affirmative behind closed teeth. “It will take some time for us to familiarize ourselves with this method of connecting,” he said, as his free hand stroked down the fabric of Will's pale gray back.

Will hummed, and closed his eyes when a strong thumb brushed up the line of his neck. “I wouldn't waste our time together here, when we could live in the flesh,” he murmured, before soft lips pressed against he shell of his ear.

“Take us away from here,” he whispered against Hannibal's cheek as he slid both arms around his Alpha's neck. And Hannibal breathed in deep before his hands reached down to Will's hips, and brought them forth, off the table. 

He was back on his feet, when Hannibal told him:

“Open your eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3<3<3


	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don't remember me,” he said, point blank, as he placed his hands flat on the counter. The words were a sigh of his highly tensed brain, spoken out with a grunt of defeat. 
> 
> Because if the man didn't remember his damp, messy curls, his heated, naked skin, and the shimmer in his eyes as fangs bit into his flesh, he had never seen those videos. If he had, Will had no doubt in his mind that he would think back of the images of moaning, writhing bodies, and his dull eyes, his grayish, veined skin... it would betray him.
> 
> Nothing. Not a damn thing.
> 
> And then, at last, the eyes grew large. The man's mustache wiggled beneath his nose as his thin lips parted, and his eyelids blinked with a hot wave of true unease. 
> 
> Oh.
> 
> Yes. Here it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 50, guys!! OMG! Milestone stuff! I used to think this was gonna be the maximum number of chapters for this story....remember those days? That didn't work out :-P
> 
> I am STILL desperately looking for time to dive super hard into the reviews! I'm behind on my writing, and I got 2 kids home full time because pre-school's out for summer :-P BUT I read everything! I appreciate and love everything! I really really am so grateful for everything I get back from you when I give a little bit of myself, and a lot of Hannigram ;-)  
> But I WILL make the time when I can, lock myself in and reply to everyone! I adore you!
> 
> I hope you like this one!!....I have a very aggressive relationship with this chapter right now and I think it's a real asshole, ....I'll tell you about it at the end of the chapter! ;-)

When Will stepped into the lobby of the shabby motel, he was greeted by an empty counter. The place was deserted. 

With a careful press of the handle, Will closed the door behind him. 

Everything was quiet.

The space was poorly lit by a single overhead light, containing a bulb so weak it struggled to make a dent in the evening twilight. Then, there was the computer, illuminating the back wall with an ominous blueish glow, and filling the room with the buzzing of the hard drive.

“Hello?” he called out.

The response – was nothing.

Will waited a full ninety seconds, without a single breath leaving his lungs. 

Silence.

Then, he moved towards the counter with feet so light against the linoleum floor, they couldn't be detected over that electronic zoom. 

The computer. He needed that computer. If only he could get a quick browse through the files to see if there was anything on there... that belonged to _him._

His fingers curled around the edge of the half-circle reception desk as he pressed his thighs against the surface. If he could turn around the monitor, press a key...

He lifted himself up on his toes and bent forward, stretched, reached for the mouse...

The evening could have passed so easily.

But he heard the drag of heavy footsteps from behind the worn, wooden door in the back of the lobby, before it opened with a loud click of the handle. A large man shuffled into the room, and Will was quick to take back his hand and straighten himself, as he watched the entry of a familiar face. 

It was the grumpy, balding man who had checked him out of his room, that day he went back to Molly. He remembered the round head, the beady gray eyes, and bushy blond mustache. Back then, the man had asked him where his home was, and Will hadn't been able to provide him with an answer. 

Today, his response would be much more defined – with a steadier outline, ready for some coloring.

“Huh,” the man grumbled behind his mustache the moment he spotted Will at the counter. “I didn't hear you come in.” It wasn't an apology. It was an accusation. 

His voice was raw and worn, and he smelled of cigars, coffee and scotch all at once. 

“Good evening,” Will replied pleasantly, as he watched the owner wobbling closer through the darkness. The older man had left nothing of an impression when Will last saw him. He had been civilized to the bare minimum, and their contact had been brief and utterly forgettable. 

And Will was here to find out if that experience was interchangeable.

Eyes met squinting eyes as the man stepped into the light of the monitor behind the desk. “Evenin'”, was the grunted reply, as he collapsed his round figure in his desk chair and shuffled the mouse to break off the screensaver. The blueish glow became white, and illuminated a cable sweater in a shade of orange rust that perfectly matched the man's stained teeth. 

And as the monitor came to life, those gray eyes flashed up to look at Will with a true, tired boredom. Nothing. 

He looked at Will, and there was _nothing._

_Fuck._

Will studied the pupils, the tension in the hunched shoulders, and watched the ins and outs of breath through damaged lungs. No recognition. No danger. The man didn't know him. He didn't remember. 

And that was very unexpected.

In that moment, Will's tickling, giddy confidence plummeted to cold, hard, disappointment. This man hadn't seen the videos, and now he had no plan. He was lost of what to do.

He wasn't like Hannibal.

“You want a room?” the man murmured, as he rose a bushy eyebrow, and grimaced around those orange teeth.

When Freddie had mentioned the motel as a place that lacked privacy, Will had been so certain... 

He dropped his hands from the counter, and his eyes stayed dark and heavy on the undisturbed man; cheeks rosy with alcohol and sleep. 

“No,” he said, and watched the blank, gray eyes staring him down. The man had seen him once, and _only_ once. His arrival back here was in no way more of an event than having any other costumer at his desk.

It wasn't an act. _Fuck._

Never before had Will felt such a distance between his capability, and that of the man that lived his prison life like a child with a doll house. And Will didn't like that. Not one bit.

“I don't need a room.”

So maybe Freddie had been wrong. She could have misunderstood the information she had been given. She could have lied, to wind him up. To set him up. Or maybe _he_ had been wrong about what he thought he had read between the lines. 

_Fuck. Fuck._

And that would make this difficult. There was no room for _maybe_. He couldn't walk away from this if there was a chance of _maybe_.

“You don't remember me,” he said, point blank, as he placed his hands flat on the counter. The words were a sigh of his highly tensed brain, spoken out with a grunt of defeat. 

Because if the man didn't remember his damp, messy curls, his heated, naked skin, and the shimmer in his eyes as fangs bit into his flesh, he had never seen those videos. If he had, Will had no doubt in his mind that he would think back of the images of moaning, writhing bodies, and his dull eyes, his grayish, veined skin... it would betray him.

_Nothing. Not a damn thing._

And then, at last, the eyes grew large. The man's mustache wiggled beneath his nose as his thin lips parted, and his eyelids blinked with a hot wave of true unease. 

_Oh._

_Yes._ Here it was.

“Christ no,” the man said, as he rose from his chair, and Will's heart fluttered with both nerves and victory. _Bingo._ He was right. Will had followed the trail, and was about to catch the vermin. 

The flustered man took one step back as he wiped a large hand over his dampening forehead. “Not again,” he grumbled, and Will watched as he took a handkerchief from his pocket, and used it to dab at his heated neck. 

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, “I can't do another one.” He shook his head hard enough to make his chubby cheeks shake, and Will blinked his confusion over the stuttered words. 

_Another one?_

_Another what?_

The handkerchief wiped at the upper lip beneath the mustache, where little drops of perspiration were quickly forming on the skin. “I promised my wife it wouldn't happen again,” the man bemoaned pitifully, and Will saw a flash of true fear inside those beady eyes.

Will froze, paused, opened his lips to speak, and fell flat in his state of complete disorientation. He watched the sweaty man, blinked against the dry air, and wondered what Hannibal would have done, had he been here in his place. 

He would either have lost his patience, and slaughtered the man on the spot, or he would have found a most elegant way to decipher the meaning of this; a minimal word count and never perplexed.

But Will had his own ways of dealing with unexpected turns: “What?” he blurted, as he frowned deep enough to see his eyebrows. He knew his teeth were showing through the scowl that crept up his features. Sharper now, than ever before.

“No more,” the man stuttered as he watched Will with both dread and desperation, and pressed one hand against the side of his face. “No more illegitimate children on my doorstep.” 

Children...

_Oh._

For fuck's sake....

Will listened to the wheezy breathing of the twitchy man before him and closed his eyes in pure, anguished exhaustion. He was wasting his time. He could have been with Hannibal tonight, but instead...

“No, Jesus no,” he hissed, as he bit a pained fang into his lower lip and shook his head until his curls bounced. But the man didn't look at him. He was unfolding his handkerchief between unsteady fingers and stared at the contents as he fumbled with the edges.

“I don't have money,” he grumbled between his teeth. “I don't have...” He seemed lost in his own anguished muttering, until Will banged his flat, frustrated hand against the counter.

_BANG ___

__The balding head shot up, and Will's eyes met his in a straight, hard stare. “I am _not_ your kid,” he growled, as he tried to unclench his jaw. _ _

__Calm._ _

__He watched gray eyes widen and thin lips open in a display of deep relief. “Oh,” the man pushed out of his lungs, as the redness of his face paled to a deeply faded pink. The handkerchief was pushed entirely to the man's face to wipe at the leaking drops of sweat. “I thought you might...” He trailed off in a low murmur, as Will blinked over his own, twitching eyes._ _

__Why in the world...?_ _

__“Does this happen a lot?” he asked bewildered, as he looked at the hideous, orange sweater, the tight, golden ring on the thick finger, and the socks in sandals on his feet. He didn't need to be an empath to understand. The man was married, and had been for a long, long time. Judging by the response, he had at least two children outside of wedlock, and of late, his illegitimate offspring had come to find their real father._ _

__For money. For love. A child-parent relationship... nothing he was willing to provide._ _

__Will huffed, and bit into his lower lip. Maybe the man knew he had a son, somewhere in the world. A boy from his younger days, the result of an affair with a woman with dark curls and blue eyes._ _

__His wife, most likely, in the dark._ _

__The man shook his head, as a glint of irritation sparkled through his demeanor. He was annoyed by his own reaction, and Will's invasive question. “There has been...” he grunted, before he shook his head and straightened his back._ _

__“ _You_ asked me if I remembered you,” he suddenly spat. “How would I possibly know you?”_ _

__Will smiled gently at the accusing cry that tried to hide the embarrassment of a fully grown man. All evasion, no responsibility. “I've stayed here before,” he explained, as he watched the man reach into the beige coat, hanging from a hook on the wall. An envelope with tobacco appeared from his pocket._ _

__“If you want to check in, you can do it with my colleague,” he snarled, and Will watched his attempt to make a dignified exit, leaning his elbows on the high end of the counter._ _

__The man was rolling a cigarette between his brown fingers with much skill and little mind as he shrugged his coat over the other arm. “My shift ended at nine.”_ _

__The clock on the wall above the hook received a meaningful glance. Ten to ten._ _

__“Of course,” Will told him as he watched the man's pitiful struggle with his jacket. “You wouldn't want to be home late.” Their eyes met, and Will's lips twisted on his face. “Your wife might suspect another child on her doorstep, 18 years and nine months from now.”_ _

__Gray eyes spat acid, and Will watched them with a steady gaze. They grew red and pushed further from their sockets with a fury that boiled underneath the silence, thick, until the man paced to the wooden door in the back, opened it with a bang and yelled “ALBERT!” into the hallway behind it. Then, he walked straight past Will and rushed himself out._ _

__The glass trembled when the door fell shut._ _

__The mustache, the temper, the neglect... in many ways the man did remind Will of his father._ _

__But there was no room for reflection or silence, because as soon as the empty coffee cups on the counter had stopped clinging, another man came walking in from the back of the lobby._ _

__Early forties. Dark hair, scruffy beard, slender and untended from his untied shoelaces to the dandruff on his shoulders._ _

__“Good evening,” Will greeted him, as the man walked straight to the desk without a glance in his direction. Disturbed, hasty, and irritated. “We have one room left,” he grunted, as he sat down in the chair and grabbed the mouse with blind fingers. “But the drain is clogged and I...”_ _

__\- “Good evening,” Will repeated, leaning elbows on the counter as he stretched on his toes to look straight at the man across him. The muttering stopped, and dark blue eyes stared straight at him from beneath thick lashes, and wild, wolfish eyebrows._ _

__He saw Will, and Will saw him..._ _

__...and there it was._ _

__Pupils blew wide, eye whites pushed wider, dry lips parted and blood drained from beneath uneven skin. Oh yes. Will did not know Albert. But Albert knew Will._ _

__“I... evenin',” Albert rasped from behind the monitor. Rooms and plumbing forgotten. Their eyes stayed locked, as the man sat frozen in his place behind the desk, unknowing how to proceed._ _

__Will smiled, lids halfway down his eyes, as he felt all of his doubts wash away. “You know who I am,” he said, and felt a rush of something powerful breathing to life inside of him when Albert's eyes leaked guilt. Dread._ _

__Strength slithered through Will's muscles, as the wolf inside of him blinked open his eyes from his place beside the empty rocking chair. Awake._ _

__“No,” the man was quick to tell him as he shook his head, and pushed the desk chair back with his feet to create a greater distance between them. “No offense man, I have all kinds of people walking in and out of this place.” His hands fumbled with the rough edges of his denim jacket. “I don't keep track of...”_ _

__But Will pushed a fang into his stretched lip and tilted his head at the stuttered rant. “But you know me,” he interrupted. Calm. Cat in the sun. Lion in the glass cage. Not a drop of intention revealed from his pores, as the Omega paced between the walls of his skull. Ready._ _

__“No,” Albert told him, but the smile he fabricated couldn't reach past a grimace. “Sorry. Not a clue.” Casually apologetic, and it was fake. Beautifully, easily detectable. The Omega huffed through his nose, and Will felt a shiver of thrill and satisfaction._ _

__This was him. This was the guy._ _

__“You don't remember?” he asked with practiced quasi-innocence as he stepped back from the counter, and spread his arms. He turned, rotated a full circle, before coming to face the nervous man with questioning tilt of his head. “Which of my angles would help speed up that process?”_ _

__Albert's throat worked with a heavy swallow. “L-look man,” he stuttered through gasps of breath. “I don't know what people told you, but I didn't...” His hands were up before his chest as his feet pushed him back in the rolling chair._ _

__“You took my discs,” Will said, plain and simple, void of color. He moved to step around the counter and watched the man jump from his chair to meet him, face to face, height to height. “No,” the man gasped with shaken indignity, as his eyes darted around the room. Looking for a way out._ _

__Will smiled pleasantly as he folded his hands behind his back. “You took the discs, copied the contents to your computer, and put them back in my room,” he said, his voice clean and clear of doubt as he stretched out his shoulders, and felt his Omega doing the same. The man's dark hair stuck up from where he kept running his hands through the greasy locks, as one arm folded around his ribs._ _

__“What?” he tried to laugh. He tried, but his eyes shone his guilt like diamonds in the sunlight. And there was more; he was afraid. There was a fear, like Will had seen before today. He remembered Freddie's eyes when she had opened the door. Jack, when he had left the apartment like a kicked dog. Alana, clicking nervously with her pen. He wondered what people saw these days, when they looked at him like that._ _

__“Man, I...” Albert searched, as he held the back of the chair with his fingers. “Look, I didn't do anything with it,” he then blurted, his face heating from pale to lilac. “I just watched it.”_ _

__A confession. Will didn't blink, as he stared back at the mess of a man before him. Good. There was no _maybe_ about this anymore._ _

__“I didn't know what was on there when I took them, OK?” the man choked, and Will tilted his head. No. That was a far cry from OK. For that alone, Hannibal would play a tune on his appendix.  
“And...?” he asked, tightening his lips as Albert's features twisted with discomfort. Ears turned bright pink. _ _

__“Well, I'm not usually into that kind of stuff-” he mumbled, and Will flashed his teeth from behind his lips. “AND what else did you do with it?” he lashed, and watched the man's dark eyes widen to new width._ _

__Calm, calm, Will breathed inside his mind as he felt his nails twitching inside his fingers. His Omega bared claws and teeth, and hunched his back with a lively growl. The wolf was excited. The wolf wanted out._ _

__“Did you upload it, send it to other people, sell it to media?” he counted on his fingers, as he kept his voice a steady drum from between his teeth. Albert's hands slid inside the pockets of his jacket. “No, no man,” he whined. “It was nothing like that.”_ _

__Will looked past the terrified man into the glass of the key display behind him, and could see the blue gleam of his own eyes in the dark room. His tongue tried the point of a fang, and indeed, they felt sharper, longer, with his own rising longing for justice. Violence._ _

__The need to do himself and his mate honor, inside a greedy, dishonest world._ _

__“I watched it,” Albert screeched, eyes wide and red, hands restless on the buttons of his sleeve. “I was just curious, man. I had no idea it was...” Dry lips were licked with a nervous tongue, as the man lowered his head. “I know it was wrong, but I wasn't going to do anything with it.” His dark blue eyes were big beneath the wolfish brows. “I just put the disc back in your room and...” Albert cleared his throat and shuffled an old sneaker against the floor. Skittish little whelp._ _

__But that wasn't what had happened. Will's nails curled over the rim of his fingertips, because he knew it was a lie. It was the reason he was here. “You told someone about those discs,” he spoke, breathing long streams of air through his nostrils like a patient, prowling hound in the dark. “Dark hair, one good eye, pretty suit...” A crooked smile stretched over Will cheeks and Albert's flush drained back to pale. Inside the midnight blue, Will could see profanities dancing._ _

__“I didn't...” Albert was quick to defend himself, as he took one step closer towards the wooden door in the back. Will noticed that step._ _

__“The guy came in very late, one evening,” the man said, raising his voice in both pitch and volume as if defending his actions to a scolding parent. Will felt a thrill over Albert's open discomfort when he covered the new distance with one step of his own, and heard his Omega purr with the desire to break off the restraint, and pounce._ _

__“I didn't hear him come in...” Albert's breath hitched when Will moved back with him._ _

__“You copied the contents to your computer, before you put them back in my room,” the Omega offered, his hands still tangled on his back. “And he walked in on you watching it.” That evening must have been such a beautiful, shiny penny for dear, dear Frederick. He had struck gold, with minimal digging effort. Finally, luck had been on his side of the coop._ _

__Albert's lips tightened as his eyes flashed to a file cabinet behind his left hip. “He wanted to know where I had found the videos,” he breathed through a tightened throat. “He said he wouldn't alert authorities if I told.” Albert bumped against the cabinet, and fingers came to rest against the top, searching their way down._ _

__Will watched him, and smiled._ _

__Chilton had been a smart magpie, as ever he was. He had bumped into that brilliant gem, and with a snap of his fingers, little Chilton had turned himself into a big, important peacock. Big enough to get his hands on what he wanted, without the threat of an unfortunate backlash. Blackmail. That was, until his own colorful feathers of narcissism had flaunted themselves to a worthy opponent in the field: Miss Freddie Lounds._ _

__And sweet, dear Freddie hadn't realized that, when she had wished to make a fool out of Will Graham, he already had one foot in the door._ _

__Will looked at Albert, and watched the man's eyes twitch in their sockets. Before presenting, he would have found this little web tedious, at best. Now, he realized he was the spider to the wriggling, dirty flies. The lion, amongst the screeching, stealing hyenas._ _

__And Will felt strong and tall in the poor light of the single bulb. He was no longer the lone wolf._ _

__Albert's fingers found the handle of the top drawer. “He deleted all the files,” he spoke defensively. “He didn't even take them for himself. I have nothing, man, ” he moaned his misery. “It's all gone.”_ _

__And as apprehensive Albert was of Will's gentle demeanor, as unimpressed was Will with Albert's claim of innocence._ _

__But it didn't matter, because Will knew exactly what had happened. Chilton had the real discs, because he had taken them from his room when he paid him that gracious visit. He had wanted the originals, because he wanted that leverage. That value. That power. “He wanted the real thing.”_ _

__The _only_ thing._ _

__Because Chilton wanted money, but Chilton also wanted more. Frederick had always craved recognition, a reputation, awe, fear and respect. It had not come to him as the head of a criminal hospital, and now, he had decided to become that stingy wasp on the wall, and exploit the lives of those living true shocking sensation, horror, drama and gore._ _

__Freddie Lounds 2.0, rated NC-17 for sex and graphic acts of violence._ _

__“Did he take them?” Albert wheezed, rubbing clammy palms over his jeans as Will pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat._ _

__Inside, the lining was clean and empty against his fingers. New._ _

__Will had been forced to buy himself some clothing with his provided credit card, and he had indulged himself with socks, underwear and everything from there on out. At the store, he had reached for black only, which was not something he remembered himself ever doing before. Looking in the lengthy mirror at the apartment, he had decided he liked it._ _

__“He took them.”_ _

__Of course Chilton had taken them._ _

__“Oh...” Albert swallowed, back awkwardly angled against a sharp corner in the wall. “Well... I don't know anything else, man.” And his eyes were big on Will, openly wishing for him to turn around and walk back the way he came._ _

__“A-are we good?” he choked when Will didn't move, but looked at him with calm, ocean eyes that poorly veiled the primal need to rip and shred._ _

__“Are we?” Will asked him in return. Blue reflected in the other man's eyes, and Will knew his wolf was pushing for room._ _

__“Look man, my bad, OK? Let's not get the cops involved in this,” Albert said, as he held up both his hands to show his palms. “I'm sorry.”_ _

__Submission._ _

__The wolf inside expanded his chest, but Will understood people, like the wolf understood the ways of the wild. Animals thrive on instinct, where humanity is blemished with lies._ _

__His silence made the dark-haired man squirm, as his fingers twitched against the drawer handle. “Let's not do this, OK? You are the one with the weird prison porn fetish.” he hissed at Will. “I'm sure you don't want that to be revealed in court.”_ _

__And there it was. The cornered rat, trying to bite his way out of extermination. Will's fingers flexed inside his pockets as he watched the man with glowing eyes and fangs behind his lips._ _

__Albert's lower jaw pushed his teeth forwards in a flare of threat. “They would play that shit on a big screen, you know?” he said unconvincingly, with a disgruntled cry, trying to deflect his own fear by causing it. Politics. “Your mother would get see those videos,” the man snapped. “Everyone would.”_ _

___“They would see you, with another man.”_ _ _

__The overhead bulb of light flickered, as Will's Omega growled behind his teeth. Simultaneously, Will released his own huff of chuckles through his nose._ _

__Oh, how the fears of the every-day man were miles and miles from what could harm him. Miles and miles from what could bother him. Will knew he had begun his journey from a different peak, a different height, and was quickly growing further and higher than any common piece of cattle could ever come to graze._ _

___It's only cannibalism if we're equals._ _ _

__Hannibal saw them as pigs. He was starting to see it, too._ _

__“Well, I don't have a mother to condemn me for my life choices,” Will said, as he took a step closer to the man, trapped against the wall. Will smelled cigarettes and old sweat as he leaned closer to a pierced ear._ _

__“And he's not merely _another man_.”_ _

__A whimper pushed from Albert's throat as Will turned to the computer screen that flashed pictures of ladies in bikinis, sitting on the hoods of expensive cars. Distasteful screen savers, shabby rooms, snooping staff... three strikes, and you're out._ _

__“I would like to take a look at your computer,” Will spoke politely, as he moved towards the desk, but Albert suddenly moved quickly to place himself between Will and the monitor. “You're not touching that,” he screeched, straightening himself and broadening his shoulders. “There is nothing on there that concerns you.”_ _

__Will huffed. Hannibal was known for his aversion to rudeness, and Will understood it so much better since he had become an Omega. The emotion was primal. Feral. Rudeness in the world of the wild, meant you had an enemy, and enemy, in the world of the wild, was another word for threat. Death._ _

__The man was of similar height and posture, and this close, Will could see the veins in those dark eyes forking and popping. “Perhaps,” he said, taking his hands from his pockets and dropping them beside his hips. “But trust is to be earned, Albert.”_ _

__Their eyes met, glowing blue, and dark, dull, as Will used one arm to push around the man. It was then that the man leaped back to the filing cabinet and yanked open the top drawer. When he reached inside, his fingers clenched around a heavy, silver and wooden, magnum revolver._ _

__A gun._ _

__Will looked at the weapon, aimed fully to his throat, as Albert's panicking fingers trembled around the trigger. “Don't come any closer,” he cried, as sweat rolled down from his hair to his chin. His eyes were red, moist, and his whole body was shaking with both the terror and the anger that poured from him like liquid._ _

__An impersonal death._ _

__Will watched, and calculated._ _

__The man would shoot him. In this emotional state, he could easily pull that trigger. The bullet would rip right through Will's throat, hitting the artery, shattering the neck, ripping the wind pipe._ _

__He watched, curious, as he took one step close to the man with the gun._ _

__He would die._ _

__“Don't make me shoot you,” Albert pleaded, as Will's Omega growled and shook behind his bones. Will let him. Will allowed the beast to take him, and when the wolf was in his muscles, he knew Albert wouldn't be quick enough, wouldn't be strong enough, to make it out._ _

__“What the fuck are you, man?”_ _

__Will was going to kill him._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, guys, I am terribly sorry but this chapter was suppose to be a lot longer than this! After editing the lasts bits of the chapter today, by computer suddenly said BLOOP, and it was just gone. Did I cry? Maybe.....maybe I did.  
> It was a scene with Hannibal and Will, but it isn't ready now so I will add it to next weeks update! I really didn't want to skip a week! But no Hannibal, again! So, if you can find it in your lovely hearts to forgive me, here is a little teaser for next week:
> 
>  
> 
> _They had never walked like this; holding hands, brushing shoulders. They hadn't walked together in a long, long time. “Fontana del Nettuno,” Hannibal said, as they came to a halt before a fountain with the large statue of a strong, bearded man. On his head perched a crown, and he was surrounded by creatures of the sea. River gods, satyrs and sea-horses. Marble and bronze, with the traces of time, weather and humanity._
> 
>  
> 
> _“The fountain of Neptune,” Will said, as their linked hands swayed gently in between them._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Do you see it as clearly as I do?” Hannibal asked him, and Will turned his head to watch his profile against the pale light of the moon. His eyes were large, glazed, as he admired the art before them. “Do you feel the sheen of moisture on your skin?” Hannibal breathed. “Do you hear the falling water, and do you smell the algae on the marble…?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _But inside this shared scene, they still walked beyond different veils._
> 
>  
> 
> _“No,” Will answered him honestly. “There is no water in the fountain.”_


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had never walked like this; holding hands, brushing shoulders. They hadn't walked together in a long, long time. “Fontana del Nettuno,” Hannibal said, as they came to a halt before a fountain with the large statue of a strong, bearded man. On his head perched a crown, and he was surrounded by creatures of the sea. River gods, satyrs and sea-horses. Marble and bronze, with the traces of time, weather and humanity. 
> 
> “The fountain of Neptune,” Will said, as their linked hands swayed gently in between them.
> 
> “Do you see it as clearly as I do?” Hannibal asked him, and Will turned his head to watch his profile against the pale light of the moon. His eyes were large, glazed, as he admired the art before them. “Do you feel the sheen of moisture on your skin?” Hannibal breathed. “Do you hear the falling water, and do you smell the algae on the marble…?”
> 
> But inside this shared scene, they still walked beyond different veils.
> 
> “No,” Will answered him honestly. “There is no water in the fountain.”

The night guard opened the door for him without a fuss. “I didn't expect anyone at this hour,” he mumbled, as Will underwent the security inspection in obedient silence. Visiting hours were long over, but his name was on that special list, he knew. Alana couldn't force him to stay out in case of an emergency and, for Will at least, this qualified nicely.

He walked the long corridors, passed the sleeping inmates, and moved down the stairs to the maximum security ward. The lights were the same, as were the faces; it was the silence that was different.

Welcome.

“If you want to go inside the cell, I will have to make arrangements with some of my colleagues,” the guard grunted at him, as his fingers played with the buttons of the radio on his chest. He was a man who took the night shifts on a very regular basis, Will could tell. Dusty brown hair, deep, sunken eyes and pale skin that screamed for a serious alphabet of vitamins. He was a man who watched the sun rise and set from the other end of the table. 

“It's fine,” Will told him, his heart pulling tight with regret. “I just need to speak with him.”

He was in a hurry, and wouldn't be able to stay. 

The guard looked relieved with the easier option as he fumbled with his set of keys. “He might be sleeping,” he warned him, as the first lock clicked open. Will smiled, thinking of his Alpha under the covers of their bed, hair tousled and lips open as he slept in peaceful slumber.

The door opened.

“He's not,” he told the guard, and stepped past him to enter the room of blissful warmth, caressing him like a lover. Hannibal. The light was dimmed, but his Alpha glowed in the dark like gentle fire. He was waiting for him by the glass. 

A hand reached for him through the hole.

“Come,” Hannibal breathed wishfully against the wall as Will slid their fingers together in a tender grasp. Both men sighed at the fulfillment of their connection bursting through them, as their eyes met like a waving ocean around warm, pouring honey. He hadn't realized fully just how much it hurt, until the drumming pain was lifted by the presence of his mate. The stinging ache of his trembling nerves was gone.

“I can't stay,” Will cooed, as he rubbed their palms together and felt his thighs clenching with promises he couldn't keep. “I don't want to use up my conjugal visits for...” Will clenched his teeth as he looked at his Alpha behind the thick, indestructible glass. He wanted so much more, and the temptation was painful, but this was not the time.

“A chat?” Hannibal finished his sentence, and Will smiled at the blond eyebrow that jumped very briefly up his forehead. “Not even a chat,” he said, as he squeezed Hannibal's fingers with his own, and stroked the skin in between them. “Close your eyes,” he said, and shut his own at the words. _“Follow me.”_

They held on to each other, and Will allowed himself to fall into the darkness of his mind. Past the porch, the rocking chair, and into the wooden cabin he had built as a home inside himself. He breathed, focused, concentrated. The motel. The man. The gun. 

Very quickly, he found himself back in the dark lobby. 

Albert was there, on the chair behind the glowing computer. His throat was purple, his eyes bulging, his head tilted backwards over the top of the backrest. He was dead.

The door opened, and Will whipped his head around to see Hannibal stepping in over the threshold. He was dressed in a light gray suit with brown chalk stripes, with eyes that shone ominous and warm in the light of the weak bulb. 

Will smiled as he watched his mate enter a scene that should have been theirs from the beginning. He had needed him there, but for lack of options he hadn't been able to share this significant moment. Here, he could show him. Here, he could show it off.

Hannibal took in the scene in silence as he walked around the desk to get a good look at the man in the chair. He didn't touch anything, nor did his features betray any thought or emotion. But there was a heavier intake of breath, and when he looked back at Will, his pupils pushed so wide they left only a small, golden ring of iris. “You did this, tonight...” he uttered, and Will exhaled with his full torso as he came to stand beside his mate, beside Albert's lifeless body.

“Yes,” Will said, licking his dry lips as a tickle of nerves dried his mouth. “I killed him.”

Hannibal's eyes turned soft like clouds of honey dough as he turned towards Will, and tilted his head with a flutter of lashes, as if imagining himself rubbing to Will's side like a big, content cat.

“Tell me,” he spoke, voice husked and lips open over his sharp teeth, as Will swallowed the brush of desire that stroked him from thighs to tongue. He ran fingers against the backrest of Albert's chair as he walked around his victim and eyed his mate with a challenging smile. 

“ _You_ tell me,” he said, as he traced the wrung denim on Albert's arm. “What do you see?” Hannibal's lips flashed into a sly smile, and Will felt his insides tingle with the pride and satisfaction of playing Hannibal's own game with him.

His Alpha stepped around the chair, and roamed his eyes down to the floor, over the desk, along the bruised skin on Albert's throat and the little tears in the fabric of Will's brand new coat. Rips at the seams of the breast pockets. Will could fix that, easily.

Hannibal rested his weight against the desk, before placing his hands on either leg. “This man is a staff member of the motel where you stayed after your heat,” he said, to no surprise. Will knew this was a specialty of Hannibal's; one that made him so nearly invisible as a killer. He knew evidence. He understood where traces would lead.

“He is one of the owners,” Will added, as he folded his arms together and bounced lightly on his toes. He enjoyed the game in a way he was never willing to admit. He enjoyed that kill in a similar manner. It hadn't been surprising to realize it. What had been surprising, was that he was willing to admit it to himself.

“He angered you,” Hannibal analyzed, as his eyes took in the purple markings on scruffy flesh. The windpipe had been crushed, underneath. He leaned forward, folding away the denim collar and revealing colorful, swollen flesh. “When you entered this building, you hadn't decided on what would happen,” Hannibal spoke analytically, but the thrill was thick inside the words.

The Alpha watched Will's victim; eyes wide, mouth open, fingernail deep inside the arms of the chair. “But he was terribly rude,” he said, lifting his eyes daringly up to Will. “And he had to be punished.”

Will chuckled as he leaned himself against the filling cabinet and crossed his ankles. He watched as Hannibal looked at him, and felt a stroke of heat licking at the back of his legs. He remembered their last conversation... 

“He stole the discs of our prison's security cameras from my motel room,” he said, arms still tightly crossed over his chest. He smiled when Hannibal's eyes narrowed, as he sat back up against the desk. His Alpha was livid, and proud, endeared and possibly aroused, and Will felt all of it push through his own veins like they were directly connected to his mate's bloodstream.

“That _is_ rude,” Hannibal said, leaning his hands on the desk beside his hips with his eyes on the murdered man, with a glint of regret. A need for him to come alive, perhaps, to make his own offer to pitiful Albert. Will knew, in comparison, his death had been a holiday on Miami beach.

Hannibal released the desk and stepped forward to walk around the chair. He stopped when his shoes hit the abandoned revolver, half-hidden between the wheels. His Alpha looked down, kicked the device with the tip of his shoe and watched it come into full view at the other side. 

“He aimed a gun at you,” he said, and Will could see the tension hardening the muscles in his shoulders as he looked up at him with eyes made of earth and fire. “Will.”

Will watched him and saw the battle inside his mate. One that pleased him more than he'd ever expected. Hannibal wanted him out in the world, living life to his full capacity and destiny, of taking lives of the less deserving. Hannibal wanted for Will to want a life colored with the same desires and ambitions.

On the other hand, his Alpha never wanted his mate to touch a shred of danger, and to risk his life over murder. And it wasn't the beast battling the man, either. It was both, against both. 

He wanted to kiss him, in the prison. He wanted the door opened, or to sink himself to his haunches so he could brush their mouths together through the hole. Instead, he looked at the revolver on the floor. “There was no danger,” he said, as he scraped his foot against the linoleum. “Why?” Hannibal asked, his tone even and his eyes narrow.

Their gaze locked like flowing honey as Will pushed a fang into his lip. “I'm an Omega,” he said, and watched Hannibal quiver under his suit. His eyes closed for a brief moment, as if he was searching deep inside himself for control, and Will watched him in a silence that felt warm, humid and feather soft to his skin. Affection.

“You strangled him,” Hannibal said when he opened his eyes. Black, as fingers fidgeted on the knot of his tie. “I did,” Will confirmed, as he watched the crushed throat of the dead man before him. He could have bitten him, broken his neck with his bare hands, or sliced his artery with sharp fingernails. 

“Tell me about it,” Hannibal requested, purring as he moved past Will to circle the body like a wild lion. Their shoulders brushed, and both men breathed in sharply.

Will spread his fingers before him. “My hands...” he breathed, flexing every digit. “It was intimate.” He looked to see Hannibal before the body, eyes deep and dark on Will. “It was powerful.”

He had seen Albert's gasps for breath, and had felt his fingers fisting into the front of his jacket as he kicked his legs against the floor, searching for stability. And Will had been taken by his anger, picturing the man watching his images in the darkness of the lobby – aroused, disgusted, or something in between.

He had lied to Will about the videos. They had still been there, on the computer. Chilton had not deleted the images, or perhaps, hadn't found wherever else they had been hidden.

His skin had reddened before it paled. His veins had popped beneath his flesh and forked beneath his eyes. His windpipe had cracked beneath his fingers so easily it astounded him; the man had been no match. His height, his posture, similar to Will's, but the power that pushed through the Omega's muscles was forced by savagery.

“I watched him die,” he said, as he saw his mate's skin deepen in color. “I wanted it.” The confession was both for Hannibal and himself, as he breathed in deep, held the air inside his chest, and released it through his nostrils. He watched his Alpha do the same.

Hannibal's thoughts, words and wishes were visible like fireflies behind his eyes. But he let them fly, without snatching them from the air. Instead, the Alpha reached out his fingers to Albert's throat, and moved over the damaged skin without touching it.

“No nail marks,” he wondered out loud, and Will brushed a loose curl off his forehead. He could start wearing it in a ponytail by now, if he wished. “I had to be careful,” he sighed, thinking back at that moment his fingers had wanted to rip into the skin and tear until his shoes were gushed with blood. Slaughter him, like the beast asked of him.

He couldn't. He was the only known Omega in the wide, wild area, and it would have been like leaving a neon sign with his name on the body. He hadn't made that mistake.

“Hannibal...” 

But he had made many, many others.

“I _wasn't_ careful,” Will admitted, as he wiped a tired hand over his face. He had realized moments after Albert's eyes grew dim, and the room was silent with electronic buzzing. “I have a witness.” Hannibal's eyes lifted to his with curiosity, rather than worry, but Will _did_ worry. If he would be caught as a killer, he would be locked away in prison. Maybe with Hannibal, but more likely without.

Chances of getting out, together, would become unforgivably narrow. But he hadn't thought about that, when it happened. In his head, everything he had done was justifiable... Justice.

“The other man who works there. He saw me,” he explained, as he rubbed both temples with his fingers. “He talked to me.” He watched Hannibal, stoic, unshaken. “He knows who I am, and that I was there.” 

His own grimace was overshadowed by the tender look in lion eyes, as Hannibal took his time to sauntered over to the filing cabinet. Hands were placed beside Will's hips, and fangs showed in the little bit of overhead lighting as the Alpha smiled, pushing his nose against Will's cheek. “We all practice to make perfect,” he hummed against Will's skin, who nuzzled into the contact like a starving cub. “And already I am most impressed.” 

Will smiled when lips brushed along the skin of his cheek, before they pressed into a kiss on his own, searching lips. Proud, Hannibal wished to call it, Will knew. But he was hesitant to use a word that could be considered condescending, labeling them unequal. 

It didn't matter. Will felt the words, the meaning, the intention, and eliminated any room for misunderstanding.

Hannibal pulled back and slipped from Will's arms as he tried to cling to his Alpha. “Write down the address,” he said, as he picked up a notebook and a pen from the desk, and offered it to his Omega. Will took the offer with a cocked eyebrow, as he stared down at the paper. 

“You can read it back, like this?” he said, as he clicked open the pen with his thumb. This possibility had not crossed his mind. The thought made him wonder with much curiosity how much more they were able to do inside the boundaries of their shared minds. A written note by him, left for Hannibal, retrievable by his Alpha inside his own head...

“That depends on your handwriting,” he spoke pleasantly, and Will felt a tickle of pleasure brushing up his belly, before he wrote down the name of the street, the number, the area, whatever he could recall. It was a convenient thing he had looked it up before coming to the motel.

“Well, it's not _calligraphy_ ,” he said airily as he handed Hannibal the note between his fingers. “But it will do.” They shared a smile, and Will remembered the first time he saw the envelope of the letter Hannibal had sent him. The handwriting had been unmistakable, and his blood had pumped with enough speed to make his ears ring. 

“What is this?” Hannibal asked as he placed back the pen in a plastic cup on the desk. His eyes fell on the computer screen showing an opened folder, filled with thousands of video files.

Will felt his smile pulling into a smirk, as he lifted himself, and stepped beside Hannibal, before the monitor. “I searched the computer for our videos,” he said, and watched Hannibal squint briefly around his dark eyes. The proud Alpha male and his cherished, feisty Omega mate, witnessed in the throes of their passion and affection by a simpleton of a man. 

“I found the files,” Will told him, “along with this list of images of guests at the motel room.” His fingers gestured along the endless row. “There are cameras installed in the bathrooms, the bedrooms...”  
He shook his head, huffed, and leaned his hands deep on the desk. It had been a beautiful find, equally convenient and disturbing. Most disturbing of all was that he had found himself amongst the files. Taking a shower, on the phone with Hannibal, or pressed against the wall by The Dragon's strong hands.

He had stopped his exploration there – afraid of finding himself in more compromising positions on the motel bed.

“ _Voyeur_ ,” Hannibal said, as he folded his hands behind his back. “Such a beautiful word for such disgrace.” His voice was calm, but his eyes were jet black with distaste.

Will hummed his agreement, as he scrolled back up the page, leaving it where he had left it in the motel. He wasn't sure what that would change, but... there was still much to figure out.

“He was a pervert,” he said, and felt a hint of pride caressing the back of his neck. He lifted his chin, and met the heated gaze of his Alpha, balancing on the edge of many, many cliffs of sentiment. “How does it make you feel?” Hannibal asked him with a touch of affection, as if referring to a most beautiful, intimate moment. 

“Just,” Will said, and Hannibal squinted those honey blood eyes. “In your nature?” he asked, and Will lowered his own lids, as he simmered in the warmth of their connection and celebration.

“Yes,” he answered, licking at his lips and along his teeth. “I thought of you.” He watched his mate's eyes flicker to his mouth, as Hannibal stepped towards him, and placed one hand to cup the back of his neck.

“You were all I could think about,” Will whispered truthfully, trustfully, as he allowed his head to be supported by a strong hand that cradled him like a precious jewel.

“As I can't stop thinking about our last conversation,” Hannibal whispered back, eyes to eyes, lips brushing over lips.

“Neither can I,” Will confessed, before opening up for his Alpha, and allowing him to kiss until deep within his soul. He remembered the last time they were together, like this.

**

**_Earlier that day_ **

_“Take us away from here,” he whispered against Hannibal's cheek as he slid both arms around his Alpha's neck. And Hannibal breathed in deep before his hands reached down to Will's hips, and brought them forth, off the table._

_He was back on his feet, when Hannibal told him:_

_“Open your eyes.”_

And when Will did, the prison was gone. 

What surrounded them was the wide space of a square, framed by towering architecture in the Renaissance style; arches, statues and fountains. 

“Italy,” he breathed, as he watched the deserted splendor in the pale light of a full moon.

“Piazza della Signoria,” Hannibal's voice waved from behind him, and Will turned to see his mate, dressed in sand-colored slacks and a matching waistcoat over a crisp, white shirt. He chuckled fondly, and looked down to see himself in beige chinos and white short-sleeves. 

Hannibal's fantasy, carefully executed.

“Florence,” Will said, and watched Hannibal's answering smile. The amber eyes were glowing, and he looked radiant within the well-known surroundings of his beloved location.

“Walk with me,” Hannibal hummed, as his fingers reached for Will's, and placed them to rest at the crook of his arm. Will's hand curled in the white shirt, before the Alpha led him through the silence of the wide, L-shaped square, visible for him through the memory of his mate. 

They moved together, and the rhythm of their bodies synced up like it was all they had ever done. The feeling, was just so. 

“I will take you here, one day,” Hannibal told him as they strolled past the tall, stone buildings that echoed their footsteps in the silence of the evening air. The arm beneath Will's fingers traveled down as Hannibal's touch slid over the crook of his elbow, the inside of his wrists, until their fingers folded together in a gentle, warm collision of skin.

“Maybe I'll take _you_ here,” Will semi-joked, as he squeezed the bones of their fingers with a flex of his hand. “Equally desirable,” Hannibal agreed, and Will bit into the smile that pushed over his lips. He wasn't worried that the Alpha considered them less than equal. 

The world, however...

They had never walked like this; holding hands, brushing shoulders. They hadn't walked together in a long, long time. “Fontana del Nettuno,” Hannibal said, as they came to a halt before a fountain with the large statue of a strong, bearded man. On his head perched a crown, and he was surrounded by creatures of the sea. River gods, satyrs and sea-horses. Marble and bronze, with the traces of time, weather and humanity. 

“The fountain of Neptune,” Will said, as their linked hands swayed gently in between them.

“Do you see it as clearly as I do?” Hannibal asked him, and Will turned his head to watch his profile against the pale light of the moon. His eyes were large, glazed, as he admired the art before them. “Do you feel the sheen of moisture on your skin?” Hannibal breathed. “Do you hear the falling water, and do you smell the algae on the marble…?”

But inside this shared scene, they still walked beyond different veils.

“No,” Will answered him honestly. “There is no water in the fountain.” 

He watched the empty basin, before he brought his eyes back to Hannibal. They were so close, so deeply woven into the other's mind, but there were limitations. 

“We have yet to be fully open to the other,” Hannibal said with a thoughtful gaze that sparkled like dew in a golden sunrise. 

The Alpha turned to him, bones and skin defined like a Roman statue, and brushed his free hand along Will's cheek.

“How is business?” Hannibal asked him with a tenderness that would have fit a profession of love rather than such mundanity. “Going,” Will huffed with a mirthful shrug as he leaned into the gentle touch against his jaw. “I need to track down some people.” 

Hannibal's shoulder brushed closer to his. “Send the names to my attorney,” he said with a wave of his hand, as if such trivialities were unworthy of Will's personal attention. A warmth spread through Will's chest at the notion, and his lashes fluttered when Hannibal's fingers traced down the lines of his throat.

“It's just some research,” he murmured, and felt Hannibal unlink his hand, before it traveled up to his shoulder, and curled around his upper arm. When his eyes focused, Will saw the shimmer of Hannibal's gaze, like fire reflecting on deep, dark water, and felt it pull hard on the knot beneath his lungs. 

He wanted Hannibal. He needed him. He needed so badly for them to be here, in Florence, dressed in real flesh and bones. 

“I'd rather you occupy your time more efficiently,” Hannibal said, heat in his voice as he cupped Will's face with phantom hands. Will kissed the soft lips, so careful it was nothing more than a brush of skin, but he whimpered into the contact like a starving animal.

“Will,” Hannibal whispered against his lips. “Look at me.”

And he did. He pulled back just enough to look into those pooling eyes of earth and fire, and felt Hannibal's fingerprints dabbing at the inside of his skull. Smooth like honey, hot like the licks of a flame. 

Suddenly, the fountain started clattering its water over Neptune's marble feet.

“Oh,” Will pulled back, eyes wide as he watched the basin fill to the brim. He felt the sheen of little drops in the air around them, and watched as the lanterns on the square came to life with gentle fires that danced behind the glass, and lit the evening sky. 

Hannibal had touched his mind, and everything became brilliant.

“There's no need to face the world alone,” Hannibal spoke gently as he rested his forehead against Will's and inhaled the memory of his mate. “Come home. Bond with me.”

Will breathed in deeply through his nose at the plea against his skin, and smiled ruefully over his teeth. Always, once more. 

“It sounds like you're proposing,” he tried to laugh, as he carted his fingers through the back of Hannibal's hair. They had discussed it so many times, and at this point in their lives, Will wouldn't tell him 'no'. 

But somewhere, deep down, he still feared to say 'yes', and that wasn't the 'yes' he wanted to give. Even when the reasons seemed to fade and pale on the blackboard of his mind.

“I am,” Hannibal told him, and with a stop of his fluttering heart, Will watched his Alpha sink to his knees before him on the Piazza della Signoria, before the fountain of Neptune. 

“Hannibal...” he breathed, as the Alpha took his hands, and looked at him with pure, heart-wrenching devotion. Love. A proposal, but what he asked for was not as simple as a marriage. What he asked was a bond, a way for their souls to intertwine and their minds to exist as one.

It was not to share your life; it was to live it as one. To extend yourself and erase the lines of your silhouette. To redraw them along two bodies, one mind.

“Will...” Hannibal croaked, looking up at him with endless eyes, before his face came to nuzzle against Will's lower belly, and his hands reached for the waistband of Will's chinos.

“I...” Will choked, as his own hands found their way down Hannibal's face, and he stroked his mate with closed eyes, and trembling lips. “Hannibal, I...”

Will felt him, and held him wherever he could as Hannibal's face was buried against his stomach. A tear spilled over his cheek as he caressed his mate with his fingers. He loved him. He loved him. Fuck... 

_Will loved him so much._

Hannibal's eyes snapped up at him before the thought could push fully through Will's mind, and black opened wide for ocean blue. God. Will's fingers trembled and entangled in hair of gold and silver as his lips opened with his own, panting shock.

Will had felt it. He had recognized it. He had named it.

His mind had screamed it. And Hannibal had heard.

The clattering fountain was silent, as was the gentle breeze against their skin. They locked, unable to move past the moment, as their eyes poured and poured over the other like hot, sticky glue, and then...

Will froze, when a sudden loud beeping noise ripped through the connection, and a flashing red light suddenly illuminated the gentle scene surrounding them.

“Hannibal?” he trembled, as his Alpha pulled back, and looked up at him from his place on his knees. His eyes were red, and skin was pale. His hair was short and silver, and his back clad in a pale gray cotton.

“I'm out of time...” the Alpha told him, voice rasping hoarsely in his throat, and before Will could grab him, hold him, the space around them suddenly turned a blinding black.

There was nothing to be heard, but the beep of a disconnected phone line, and when Will opened his eyes, he was in the apartment with his mobile in his hand.

Hannibal had hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooohhhh I'm working very hard on the reviews!: I love you guys so much for all the support, it makes me so happy and I am so so grateful!!! This fandom really is the best out there!! 
> 
> And I really hope you enjoyed a little bit of Florence ;-) Romance in Italy!   
> Love you!!!


	52. Chapter 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He floated through black, and felt himself trembling with effort as little droplets fell from his hairline. Hannibal. He wanted Hannibal. Inside his mind, his arms reached, and reached, and pushed a little further, until he saw dull, artificial light shining in a white room, far from his grasp.
> 
> _Hannibal._
> 
> His breath hitched as his hand tightened on himself. He felt a rush of something familiar in that light and jolted in the bathtub when he suddenly heard a voice ring clear inside his mind.
> 
> “Will?”
> 
> Will's eyes rolled in their sockets as he heard the familiar, smooth tone stroke over his skin like a feather, before something grabbed him right behind the bellybutton, and yanked him hard through the darkness of the tunnel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I am so sorry there was no update last week!!! I guess I thought I had super powers for a minute and squatted down in front of my kid all super nanny parenting style in the super market....POP said my knee! (I'm a crazy 6.25 feet so those knees provide a lot of service, thanksverymuch!) I'm getting my MRI tonight so I'm still not sure what's up exactly and if and when I need surgery, but for now I see no changes in my writing schedule for the coming time, since I am stuck on the couch anyways! :-P
> 
> Also, I noticed that some people got a little confused with the time line, which I TOTALLY understand because it was a bit all over the place!! I was doing some experimenting :-P Let me explain it in the most romantic way possible!
> 
> -Jack came over to the apartment and threw around some pictures of the artsy, dead Dragon. When he left, Will called his cutie Hannibal and they went into their mind palace together. They talked in Hannibal's former office (About Francis calling Will not handsome! FFS), his basement, the prison, and when Will asked Hannibal to take them somewhere else, Hannibal took them to Florence and got all down on his knees and made Will realized he loved his big strong Alpha man like a happy, Omega puppy!
> 
> After the phone call was ended, Will was in the apartment and went to the creepy motel. Feeling all sexy and confident, he confronted the gross motel dude and... killed him. Cute!  
> THEN he goes to hold hands with Hannibal is prison, and they look at the crime scene while Hannibal is all excited, glowing and silently screaming “You love me and you know it you beautiful sexy son of a bitch, you told me in your mind and I heard you, now come here and let me bite you!” But instead he just told him: “I can't stop thinking about our last conversation,” and they just did a little feeling up in the mind palace before Will was on his way back to the apartment. He is a busy man, after all!
> 
> Hope that clears it up a little, and if not, I am so sorry for making it confusing!! Love you guys! Please hang in there, things are gonna get very Hannigrammy soon!!

His bed was large and warm and heavenly soft. 

Too much of anything for one man alone.

 _“Sleep. Do not worry about tomorrow,”_ Hannibal had told him through the prison glass when their eyes had opened, and their hands had released. Will had walked back to his apartment through the darkness of the silent night, before sleeping solid hours with dreams made of color and sound; blue and black, rust and denim. Crackling bones and popping joints, and the electronic buzz of a computer.

Morning came, and the sun peeked through the blinds as Will's phone vibrated on the nightstand. The buzzing noise of plastic rattling against wood seeped from his dreams into reality, and it took a while before his hand reached blindly for the source, face pressed fully to his pillow. He groaned, and wrapped his fingers around the warm device, before his brain finally turned on the lights and flipped the sign on the door: _Open._

He blinked away the sleep and the crusty stuff in the corners of his eyes, as yesterday's events came rushing back; his hands tight on a scruffy throat. His fingers pressing into bruising skin. His body taking life from another.

 _“Jesus,”_ he croaked in bewilderment as he wiped a tired hand over the side of his face, and flipped open a new e-mail from an unknown source: _L1S59UIP22@Safe-mail.net_

_Dear Mister Graham,_

_I hereby send you the requested information. You will find everything you require in the attachment to this message. If there is anything else I can help you with, I am at your disposal._

_This e-mail will be removed from your in-box within two hours after receiving it._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Louis_

_P.S. For your own best interest, I must insist you stay clear of Bloomfield Ave from this time forward. Thank you._

Will sighed, as he scratched his bare chest with a wandering hand, and stood from the bed to stretch his limbs with a growl and a yawn. 

_Bloomfield Ave_ was the location of the motel. 

He yanked a shirt over his head and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Coffee, he decided, was needed before he could deal with anything more, but as the machine was heating and the red light had yet to turn green, his thumb had already clicked open the attachment files.

 _'Louis'._ Hannibal's attorney.

After Will's 'release' from the prison, he had followed Hannibal's instructions and collected the credit card his Alpha had arranged for him at a small office, in the part of town where buildings had newspapers for blinds. An envelope had been handed to him by a gray and mute receptionist as soon as he had said his name, and he had been on his way without a full minute in. The attorney, he never had the pleasure of meeting, but working for a man like Doctor Hannibal Lecter was bound to require a _dash_ of privacy, disguise, and the unorthodox. 

Perhaps a bucket.

He opened a list of familiar names on his phone, and his eyes widened as he poured his coffee half into the cup, half onto the kitchen counter. He had sent his request only yesterday, and here it was... piles on piles of information. Excessive, personal information.

Secured. Unsavable, uncopyable. 

He sat down at the kitchen table as he scrolled down the attachment, realizing he would need to write this down; two hours, and it would all be gone. What flashed before his eyes were pages on pages of delicate knowledge about Freddie Lounds' colleagues. Her witnesses, her protection, her mice.

Will inhaled as he counted the four familiar names and pictured the faces that went right along with them. 

_Ralph Bloomer_ was the first from the top, and Will remembered the well-built photographer and martial arts teacher. Freddie had lured him there for his muscles, exterior and fighting skills, undoubtedly. Ralph would most likely also be the photographer she had wanted to bring to the prison shoot. It would send a message, put up a barrier, for her to be near someone that could overpower Will in strength and ability. Because Freddie didn't see how the Omega had shaped beneath his skin.

Freddie was not solely smart. Freddie was cocky, overconfident. Freddie was proud. She saw Will as she had always seen him: the yapping little dog, beside Hannibal's mighty wolf. All bark and small nibbles. Becoming an Omega hadn't adjusted the picture she had of him, framed inside her mind. 

But Will had grown into his fur, and when he bit, he bit through solid bone.

There were two full pages written on Ralph, with a wide range of information that wasn't of any use to him. The guy was single, owned a Pekingese named Rollo, and had memberships to two separate gyms, several nightclubs and three male-on-male pornographic websites. One of them was dedicated to people dressed in furry animals suits.

What interested him more was Ralph's agenda for the coming week, and, quite conveniently, there was a workshop the man had highlighted that very afternoon on his digital calendar:

_Sports-photography workshop at the Impact Hub – 1:00 P.M. to 4:30 P.M._

He mumbled the words under his breath as he searched for a pen and a piece of paper, before the memory of what Hannibal had taught him only hours before flashed behind his eyes. The note, the written address, retractable from his mind like an attainable object. 

_An archive,_ as real as paper between his fingers.

He grabbed the mug and his phone before shuffling down to the bathroom.

_A bath._

What he wanted right now was to think things over in a long, foamy bath with water that was hot enough to make his skin a rosy red and prune his fingers until his prints looked like raisins.

He flicked the light switch, turned the tap, and watched the water pour as the room slowly filled with steam, fogging the mirror. He waited, sipping his dark roast and thumbing at the screen.

 _Ewan Bergen._ He remembered the loud, agitated man on the phone. He was a sports journalist, Will read, but his medical report showed he had been out of the business for six months, after being diagnosed with a burn-out.

Will flipped through the pages – Ewan, too, was single, ate at his parents' house four nights a week and was registered at two different dating sites: RelationshipUniverse, and Looking4mySoulm8.

Will skimmed past the information about the man's breakfast habits and old school report carts and skipped ahead to read his schedule for today.

_8:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. - Work at Reservoir Hill_  
12:30 to 1:00 P.M. - Blocked for Lunch  
1:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. - Work at Reservoir Hill 

Very organized, and very unfortunate; he would be at work all of the day, minus his thirty-minute lunch.

Will wrote the information down, but this time, he did it on the porch of his palace. In the rocking chair, with the snoozing wolf by his feet, he took the notebook he envisioned there and wrote with the pen that appeared between his fingers. The words appeared almost as easily as he thought them, and he was curious to try and find them back in his mind later on, like Hannibal had shown him.

Always accessible, no traces of evidence. 

He turned off the tap and pushed his boxers down his hips, before toeing the water and stepping in. It was just hot enough to make him hiss without pulling away, and he placed his coffee and phone on the side-table before sliding himself into the water and stretching his naked body inside the wet heat.

_Glorious._

The tub was large enough for him to only graze the other end of the porcelain with his big toe, and the water caressed his naked body as if welcoming him in a loving embrace. He closed his eyes, and smiled, as his right hand curled around the edge. 

Hannibal hadn't taken a bath in so many years. The first one, Will decided, he would like to share with his mate, just so he could see the bliss carve out on those sharp, handsome features. The Alpha could massage soap into his hair with those agile, talented fingers, and he would sit between his mate's naked thighs and feel him surrounding him. Invading him, if Hannibal could be persuaded.

His smile stretched as he ran fingers from his sternum down his chest, and his insides clenched with anticipation. Hannibal wouldn't need persuading. Hannibal was starving for him, he knew, as he could feel that hunger echoing through his mind as it bounced with his own. Hannibal craved him, yearned for him, loved him, unapologetically. And Will felt his Alpha feel all of it through the walls of their separate minds, as sparks started to light his own rooms in reply, wishing to dance with his mate's roaring fire.

_Love._

Will sighed with weary longing as the phone made it back into his hand. 

_Rose Hill._ Yes, the lovely lady that had been flustered and helpful with eyes wide – searching for a connection inside the clutter. Her resume told him she had worked as a flight attendant for years, had one failed marriage behind her, and was now a fairly successful fashion vlogger on social media. She was also registered at five different dating websites, including RelationshipUniverse.

Will reached for the complimentary box of soap under the sink and dumped the entire content in the hot water until none of it was visible beneath the thick, peaky layers of white foam. He had never owned a tub. He had never had the full bathtub experience like people had in the the books and movies. But sitting here in the foam, he could so easily picture Hannibal entering the room in a fancy robe, holding two glasses of red wine, _mimosas if it was early_ , and lighting candles all around them before he slipped in behind Will and folded strong arms around him.

A soapy hand took his coffee cup and sipped as the foam tickled his chin, and Will hummed at the playful crackles by his ears.

 _Bryan Mann,_ the guy whose desk he had 'accidentally' bumped into. Not very kind, nor very memorable; just a political reporter, and quite a big name in the scene. But that was not what drew the Omega's intentions to Bryan Mann, because attached to his name was a police report, stating he had been arrested a total of three times for domestic disturbance, violence and battery against his wife. 

Every time, the bail had been provided by his family. Charges were dropped, and Mister Mann walked.

Will finished his coffee, before resting his head against the rim of the tub. A wife-beater. A coddled, career-making wife beater. He didn't like that.

Hannibal would call such weak behavior undignified, disgraceful, degrading. He would want a punishment for such a waste of breath and flesh and life, and transform it into something with value, beauty, _nutrition._

Will huffed and licked his lips until the tip of his tongue touched a lost flake of foam under his nose. Bryan Mann had an emergency dentist appointment today, which was scheduled to last the entire morning. The schedule highlighted _01:30 P.M._ as his time of return to the office.

He stuck out his lower lip to blow the soap from his nose.

The last name on the file made him smile, as his eyes squinted at the proud arrangement of letters. _Freddie Lounds._ Writer and reporter of many, many red, hot things, and with many more enemies than she had ever made friends. He was not surprised that Freddie did not have a schedule available, knowing how careful she was with leaving tracks, but what he was eager to find was the details of her bank account.

Because Freddie Lounds, taking a chance with both Hannibal and himself, knew she was risking more than she could afford to lose, and that had never been her style. She had always underestimated Will, and she had squeezed him like a rubber doll to get him in position, but Freddie knew very well that the rubber had hardened to less pliable bone. So why take the risk? And why take it so grandiosely? 

Because Miss Freddie Lounds was currently caught in two long-running court cases against her, and already owed a dazzling 722,000 dollars for the legal fees. Freddie needed money to obtain her freedom. Lots and lots of money. The kind of money only easily made with a powerful scoop, containing a dramatic, forbidden love story, sex and scandalous photography. 

And _then_ Chilton came along with an absolutely golden offer she couldn't afford to take, or to miss. And ideas had started brewing.

And now she was a rat hiding amongst the mice; dressing herself up with white, fuzzy fur. A decor to hide behind and to save her from a lonely office death. Freddie knew not to trust Will, but she also knew he wasn't thirsting to take the lives of four 'innocent' people. 

Will pushed his hair from his eyes, as water sloshed against his chin. She was mostly right, there.

But those mice could be lured away with the promise of a little wheel and a nibble, while the rat could only keep her head down, longing for the shelter of the sewers.

The notepad was put down beside the rocking chair, and his wolf nudged his leg playfully with his nose, earning himself a scratch behind his ears. 

Will hummed a nameless tune under his breath as his thumbs worked over the buttons of his phone. He needed some user names, passwords, documents... and a little bit of luck for it all to play out right. It was only 8:15 A.M. He had time. Hours, not days, because his and Hannibal's separation was already wearing on his muscles and his mind.

He still felt strong enough, but the emptiness was at all times chafing on his consciousness. He didn't have the time, or the stamina to trace her all around Baltimore. It had to be here. It had to be today.

The phone was placed on the little side-table and at last Will allowed himself to close his eyes and bring his arms down in the water. He groaned, as his muscles found relief in the warmth, and one hand stroked up and down his chest with distracted exploration. 

He would see Freddie that afternoon. He was anxious, knowing he needed to be a lot more careful than he had been before. But he didn't feel nervous, as his natural instinct vibrated with life beneath the surface of his skin, shaking off the dust and colorful with enthusiasm. His wolf was awake, and alight.

“Hannibal,” his mind called out, as he kept his eyes closed and tried to fall into himself deep enough to see the room change. The hand on his chest grazed a nipple. He still didn't understand how this worked without a tangible, established connection, but they had succeeded before. He wanted to try.

His eyes squinted, and his free hand stroked down the frail trail beneath his bellybutton.

He didn't want to share his plans with the Alpha; he wanted this to be his and understand, without any mirroring neurons, what it created within himself. To understand where his beast merged with the man, without anybody telling him.

Will sighed, and kept his eyes closed as his mind drifted to their mind palace in Florence. Their time there had been brief, but revealing. Just as he had dared to recognize the depth of his feelings for his mate, something he had feared to do for a very long time, Hannibal had been right there inside his mind to behold it, before Will had even found the chance to name it. 

The moment had felt so warm and golden, but also tight around his lungs and light inside his head. He hadn't spoken the words, and already, Hannibal had looked at him like he saw the sun after all those years of captivity. And yesterday, visiting him in prison to show him his own-made crime scene, he read the hot pulsing waves of hope in those bloody tiger eyes, and it had hit him like the thick, hot smoke of a volcano. 

The words hadn't been spoken, but the dark depth had almost been corporeal between them.

His hand slid down, until half his forearm had disappeared inside the thick layer of foam, and Will wrapped his fingers around his interested cock. Oh yes, the atmosphere had been ripe with desire, when the only touch possible between them had been the slide of their hands through the holes in the prison glass. But something had been different. Heavier and playful all at once. There had been an understanding that he still had been restless to face, while Hannibal had been delighted to pin it down between them with all he was worth.

He stroked the shaft with a loose fist, and felt heat curling from his thighs to his ass as his hand traveled up to the swelling head. _Fuck,_ he loved Hannibal Lecter, his Alpha, his mate, the man who kept pushing him to the edge of a precipice, waiting for Will to throw them both over. 

Hannibal had been a part of him since the very beginning, when the caged wolf had recognized his mate, and had never let him go.

He squeezed the hardening shaft of his cock and lifted his hips as he whimpered softly into the silent space. “Hannibal,” he sighed as his eyes rolled behind his closed lids. “Find me.” And he sank deeper and deeper into himself as his ears barely peaked above the water. Fingers grazed his balls and slid to his wet entrance as he traveled the dark tunnels of his mind, in search of another end. A light. A sound.

Colors flashed, but nothing became clear enough to grasp as he tried to find the cord to a connection. He wanted to try. He needed to try. Hannibal was so deeply embedded in him already that any moment without him felt raw and rough, muted and faded.

He circled a fingertip around his clenched hole and rubbed the skin of his cock over the flushed, pink head. _Fuck._ He floated through black, and felt himself trembling with effort as little droplets fell from his hairline. _Hannibal._ He wanted _Hannibal._ Inside his mind, his arms reached, and reached, and pushed a little further, until he saw dull, artificial light shining in a white room, far from his grasp.

_Hannibal._

His breath hitched as his hand tightened on himself. He felt a rush of something familiar in that light and jolted in the bathtub when he suddenly heard a voice ring clear inside his mind.

“Will?”

Will's eyes rolled in their sockets as he heard the familiar, smooth tone stroke over his skin like a feather, before something grabbed him right behind the bellybutton, and yanked him hard through the darkness of the tunnel. 

“Hannibal,” he gasped, and suddenly, he was back in the bathroom of the apartment, in the tub, inside the warm water, with his hand wrapped around his pulsing dick. And Hannibal was standing right beside him in his prison jumpsuit, a blissful expression on his pale features.

“Good morning, Will. What a pleasant surprise,” his Alpha spoke, as Will made the water slosh by sitting up and releasing himself. “Y-you found me,” he stammered, flushing with excited shock as he looked at the solid shape of his mate behind his eyes.

“You found _me_ ,” Hannibal corrected him pleasantly as his eyes wandered over the soap that clung to Will's bare chest. The Omega smiled and shook his head as a hand curled around the edge of the tub.  
“But you came here, to _me_ ,” he said, and felt his breath tremble as the Alpha leaned forward and rested his arms on the porcelain bath with a challenging glint in his eyes of heated glass.

“ _Here_ is where you wanted me,” he purred, before capturing Will's open lips in a playful kiss. Will hummed into the contact, only there to stroke his mind rather than his actual flesh. “Want,” he murmured, before pressing his mouth full against Hannibal's teasing lips.

It was maddening; to feel him, to remember the touches and to experience them as an echo, rather than from the real source. Despite it, he wanted more. He wanted whatever he could have. “Come into the tub with me,” he said, as Hannibal squatted down beside him and ran his fingers along the white, slippery stone as his eyes drew deep lines over Will's naked skin. The Omega slid his fingers over his mate's. “Since you made it all the way here.”

Hannibal's chin was leaning on his hand as he smiled his teeth bare and lowered his eyes to the piling soap. “My pleasure,” he said, as his finger dipped into the foam and rose to show hundreds of little bubbles on top of his fingernail, causing Will to lean forward and blow the flakes of soap in the Alpha's short, silver hair.

“ _If_ you can behave like an adult,” Hannibal warned him, pulling a face at the dancing bubbles of soap as he reached for the buttons of his jumpsuit. Will chuckled and felt his skin flush as the Alpha's naked skin was revealed before his eyes. “That won't be a problem,” he said invitingly, and watched his mate's eyes sparkle liquid gold before he stepped out of his suit. 

Strong and soft, warm and hard, with hair that tickled against Will's lips and ears when he slept on Hannibal's broad chest.

“Move over,” the Alpha ordered, all clothes shed beside his feet, and Will sat up straight as he pushed himself to the middle of the bathtub. Hannibal's naked form could not be admired for long, because he wasted no time stepping in, and sliding in behind the Omega, beneath him, against him, until their bodies pressed together beneath the foam.

Will moaned as he stretched himself against the broad chest, and felt the familiar arms fold gently around his ribcage. “Fuck.” They were together, in the tub, and the water never even sloshed over the sides. The space for his legs didn't shorten, and the foam stayed perfectly in place.

The hard porcelain was still digging into his back, through the warmth and cushioning form of his Alpha. The breath in his neck, the hum in his ear, the hands that stroked down his sides... “It's like a very animated fantasy,” Will sighed, as Hannibal's knees appeared on either side of him. He stroked down his mate's legs, hidden in foam, as he allowed himself to lie back as far as he could inside Hannibal's embrace.

“You've always had a remarkably vivid imagination,” the Alpha spoke against his ear, and Will dropped his head back onto Hannibal's supporting shoulder. He could feel him, everywhere. From the toes that wriggled below his knees to the nudging cock against his lower back. His and Hannibal's imagination were in sync, elaborate and masterful in what they could create together.

“It's not enough,” he whined, as he tilted his wet, naked hips to push back against Hannibal's probing interest on his lower spine. He wanted it. He had already been aroused at the thought of seeing Hannibal inside his mind, and now that his mate was with him in spirit, his cock started throbbing beneath the foam with rising heat and anticipation.

“No matter what I'll do,” Hannibal breathed against the back of his neck as he pushed his hard flesh against Will's lower back. “Like this, it never will be.” His hands opened flat on Will's chest, and slipped down into the water over skin, hair and the muscles of his abdomen. 

Will felt himself growing slick at the ghosting caresses, as his hips started to rock in search for contact. “Fuck me,” he panted as Hannibal's hands slid back up his body to capture both nipples between his fingers.

“Outside of your heat, I have only ever _made love_ to you, Will,” the Alpha grumbled into his neck, and Will tensed at the words, arched himself back, and lifted his hips off the floor of the tub. _“God,”_ he gasped, remembering, and hearing the words from Hannibal's lips with all the color and intent. Hannibal was rejoicing, and probing, and prying. 

Smug and impatient. Happy and soft.

Hannibal grabbed hold of Will's lifted hips to pull him flushed against him, and positioned his mate over himself, ready to lower him unto his cock. “Use your own fingers,” the Alpha instructed against the bones of his neck, and Will had to pause against his Alpha's chest before understanding that his mate was referring to his body in the bathtub, on the other end of the tunnel. He tried to writhe against his mate's naked skin as he dipped his real hand beneath the foam. 

“Three fingers,” Hannibal groaned, and Will swallowed a hiss as he bundled his fingers and pushed them against the rim of his slick, needy hole. He wasn't prepared, but his body had been able to take so, so much more than this. He was made for this. Designed for it. Without much protest, his body gave way to the intrusion.

“Fu-uuck,” he choked, as his fingers slid and stretched inside him, brushing the sensitive nerves along the walls of his body. “Good, like that,” Hannibal praised him, before pushing Will's body down on him to connect the spirit of their flesh through memories alone. And Will felt it. He did. He heard his Alpha breathing and felt the thick slide and stretch inside himself, mingling with and filling out the space between his searching fingers. Sparking a fierce heat inside his core, and around the swelling of his prostate.

“Hannibal,” Will whimpered his wonder, as his body sank down around his Alpha. “I-I feel you.” Hannibal growled as his hands rubbed him from his throat to between his thighs and back up again as he started to rock their bodies with a gentle roll of his hips. “Fuck, I feel you,” Will heard himself whining like a wanton feline and he felt his body stretch and fill, as his own fingers pumped in and out of him with a matching rhythm.

It wasn't the real thing, but it was everything, still. The flesh wasn't there, but the tenderness, the energy, the love and heat, it was openly flowing between their minds, settling deep into bones and blood.

“I want...” Will grunted, as he pushed down as completely as their minds would allow, and shook when his own fingers curled against his prostate. He whimpered, sobbed, when Hannibal pinched his nipples with a satisfied growl as the Omega met every thrust of his mate's body.

“Then come see me,” the Alpha breathed, as his hands dropped to Will's wet, smooth thighs and stroked him from his knees to his filled hole. “Yes, yes, soon,” Will grunted, as he worked himself harder and deeper on his own hand, and on the memory of Hannibal's pulsing erection. Having him there, witnessing their coupling, was enough to make his cock leak against the foam, and his ass clench with every rough stroke against his insides.

“Uhh,” he groaned, when Hannibal's hand ghosted on his cock, and on the other side of the tunnel, he closed his own fingers in the very same place on his shaft. “Yes, right there,” Hannibal praised, as he picked up the pace of his pushing hips, and placed open lips to Will's shoulder. Fucking into him in earnest, now, as Will's hands worked frantically beneath the foam.

“Oh, oh, oh,” Will almost sang as his body shook in the sloshing water while he rubbed the skin of his cock against the head with his thumb and pumped his finger cruelly accurate over the pulsing prostate inside.

Hannibal growled into his ear as his hand reached between them, and fingers probed around Will's open and filled entrance. “Even inside the limitations of our mind, I can smell the scent of your arousal,” he growled, and Will felt teeth nipping at the back of his neck. “If I could, I would bathe in you alone.”

Will choked out a shuddered moan as he worked his hips, fucked himself vigorously on his fingers and watched Hannibal's hands on him through the created holes in the foam. He knew it was his own touch, on and inside him, but the view and the feel were so close to that of his mate's, stroking him just that bit slower to tease him, and grazing his prostate with beautiful, punishing skill.

“F-uuck,” he stuttered, lost, when Hannibal grunted in his ear and reached his free arm tightly around Will's torso. Holding on, pressing close. The Omega felt grazing teeth in his neck as his mate's rumbling chest vibrated against Will's back. “I love you, Will,” the Alpha choked into his wet hair as they moved desperately against each other. 

Will's eyes rolled back, and on the other side of the tunnel, he could feel his balls drawing tight against his body. _God._ Hannibal released a stream of hot air against the sensitive skin of his throat. “And you feel love for me.”

Will sobbed into the small space of the bathroom as he rocked with his Alpha and felt his toes curl hard with unforgiving pleasure. He was here, with Hannibal. So very nearly, with Hannibal. His mate, who had him, who loved him, who moved with him as if they were one. Who told him over and over...

Teeth grazed the side of his jaw, as a scrunched up nose traced the bone. “So come,” Hannibal growled deeply from his belly. “Fight your battles.” Will thighs trembled hard as his body clenched around his fingers. “...and return to me so we can express it properly.”

Will shook in Hannibal's arms, held tightly inside the wild water, as he felt himself filled, stroked and roused by a merge of his mate and himself; so thoroughly swirled the colors were blurring from ocean blue and warm gold, to a smooth, shimmering platinum. 

Lips traveled down his throat. “With my heart, body and soul,” Hannibal hissed into his heated skin, bringing Will down on him with a punishing pace as he stroked his hand upwards over the Omega's sensitive, desperate cock. 

Lips whispered huskily against his flesh: “with a bite.” 

And Will cried out at the feeling of teeth sinking through the skin of his throat. They were sharp, breaking skin and tasting blood that flowed into the greedy, searching lips. Hungry, starving for a taste of their connection.

But it was fantasy, only, because Will could feel the sting and the way his body shivered violently when his blood thrummed beneath his skin with desire, but he knew there were no marks in his throat, once he would open in his eyes.

But Hannibal groaned abandonedly into his throat as his lips closed over the make-believe mark and sucked like a surrendering, dying man. Will's body clenched and his hands tightened, until the glorious rush of his blood burst through his loins, and seed spilled from his body with enough power to make him arch entirely into his Alpha with his throat offered and his body dripping. He leaked slick around his own hand and the pleasure that took him was blindingly beautiful.

Everything. Just beyond his reach.

The ecstasy screamed deafeningly through their minds as Will felt his own body shake and rock and tense until his curls reached past Hannibal's shoulder.

As his seed flowed onto his stomach, washed away by the water, his abdomen quivered under Hannibal's touch and his muscles slowly unclenched from the powerful high. 

He heard Hannibal inhale deeply against his skin as he pulled off the bite, pressing his lips affectionately to the mark, and stretching himself out like a big cat that hummed with a satisfaction Will was certain he had not been granted.

Lips traveled brief kisses up a path to behind his ear, before his Alpha nuzzled the skin. “I so enjoy taking care of you,” he croaked sleepily, as both his hands came to stroke along Will's belly beneath the soap. “Despite our limitations.”

Will heard himself whimper like a small dog as the nuzzling nose pushed playfully behind his earlobe. There was so much to resist, to keep himself from running naked across the park, into the true heat of his Alpha's arms.

“You are such a magnificent, beautiful creature,” Hannibal caressed and praised him with his words as he brought the energy down to lazy, fulfilling, togetherness. “I would worship you every hour of every day, until my last breath.” Teeth nipped playfully at his ear as Will stretched himself out and against Hannibal with a satisfied moan.

Yes. Every day, every hour, until forever. 

Will was settling to stay for that amount of time, which was why he looked up in bewilderment when Hannibal's arms released him, and the Alpha's hypnotizing voice turned back to its regular volume.  
“But Alana has been trying to get my attention for the last five minutes, so I'm afraid I must leave you.”

Water sloshed dangerously as Will sat himself up with a jolt and turned his head to look at his mate with widened eyes. “What?” he gasped, as he watched Hannibal's wet hair, rosy, naked skin and glowing firefly eyes. “What does she think you're doing?”

He had a sudden, horrible image of Hannibal on the mattress on his prison bed, eyes closed and a pillow in his arms, for the world to see. But his mate chuckled at his frightened expression.

“Sleeping,” Hannibal said, laying out his hand, as if the idea of anything else was nothing but foolishness. “Not to worry,” he smiled, and reached to place a kiss to his Omega's lips. “The movements and speech inside our minds do not have to match the outside.”

Will released a deep breath that made Hannibal smile his teeth bare, before his fingers took hold of his mate's chin with a look of true, agonizing longing. “Although I'm embarrassed to say I might need to remain seated on the bed for this conversation.”

Will blinked at the little wriggle from his mate's hips and his lips parted in sudden understanding. Hannibal hadn't been able to touch himself in his circumstances, and he hadn't yet found his release. “Christ.” And now Alana was there, behind the glass, trying to wake him while Hannibal had just furiously gotten Will off.

“If all goes well, I'll be with you this evening for a conjugal visit,” Will promised him with guilty eyes, as he pressed his lips to his disheveled looking mate's. Hannibal's eyes sparked like flames from a candle as he licked his lips as if to taste him, and smiled softly. “Let us hope all goes well.”

And with that, Will's eyes were opened, and he found himself alone in the tub, surrounded by foam. Drops of sweat danced on his skin and semen and slick soiled the water while his limp cock floated satisfied between his legs. 

Oh God.

He was wearing the dark gray bathrobe from the closet, and was still toweling his curls dry when he watched the red light flash on his phone. Padding to the living room, he opened the messages and smiled, before his thumbs worked fast over the keys.

_Hi, I found you here on this website. Isn't it strange that we sit so close together every day, and never really gotten to know each other? I would love to change that, if you would meet me at the Dovecote cafe this afternoon at 1.P.M?_

_Hope to see you there! :-)_

He hit the 'Send' button, twice, on the private messenger. Then, he made himself a second cup of dark roast, and stared out over the park, illuminated by the early rays of sun as he typed the last message of the day.

_I have Hannibal's contract. I will drop it off early afternoon, today. - Will_

He watched the gray tower rise over the trees and sighed against the rim of porcelain.

Let us hope all goes well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope you enjoyed this one! Love you guys and I appreciate your support so super much!!! <3<3<3


	53. Chapter 53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don't take pleasure in cruelty,” Freddie pushed, and Will lowered his eyes, smiling his teeth bare at the obstacle course she was tunneling under. Refusing to beg him for her life, and reduced to becoming the rabbit, trying to find morality in the hunter, trapped against the barrel of his gun. “I don't,” he replied, before turning back to look at her. Her pumps were off her feet, while her fingers clawed at the clasps of the purse by her ankles.
> 
> Two steps towards her, and she was quick to straighten back on her chair. 
> 
> “But you do.”

**

“Do you remember the first time we played cat and mouse like his, Freddie?” Will's voice sounded through the quiet room, as he leaned his upper arm against the door post. Her shoulders tensed beneath red and white plaid before she turned on her desk chair to look at him with blue eyes sharp, but unsurprised. 

“I do,” she answered him flatly.

When the room had emptied, she knew he would come.

**

Will had left the apartment shortly after finishing that second cup of coffee and getting himself dressed in the same black jeans and coat as yesterday. The legs of those jeans were tucked unfashionably into his socks, and the leather gloves that covered his hands could very well be considered overzealous for the early spring weather. 

But the breeze had caressed his skin as he stepped outside, and it had felt comforting and awakening against his flushed pink cheeks. 

He wasn't nervous. He was ready.  
He was ready to make the world a more deserving place for himself, and for Hannibal. Together.

Before heading out to the nearby bus stop, he made a short detour to pick up an envelope, a blue bottle and a package left for him at the local deli around the corner. He tucked the items safely into the leather messenger bag he carried over his shoulder, and waved a hand at the owner before making his way across the street. 

In the package, was a gun.

_Courtesy of Louis._

The bus drive was a blur of people getting on and stepping off, as he stood motionless in the middle of the crowd with a hand around the supporting pole. Behind his eyes, he remembered Hannibal's teeth ghosting over his skin, and biting into his throat. Lashes fluttered and leather fingers found the spot on his neck, as he swallowed away the thick desire the memory ushered in. 

It moved in him, lived, from his clenching thighs in his jeans to the curling of his tongue behind closed lips.

_A bond._

Hannibal wanted that bond with a fiery and beautiful desire. He so yearned for the walls in their minds to crumble and open until there was nothing left but to face each other in the honest, naked daylight. And Will wanted that too.

Will wanted it more than anything.

But what he feared, still, was that staircase leading down into Hannibal's dark, dark basement. Their time together, before Alpha and Omega, where their connection had so often drowned in the shadows of betrayal and loss. Things had happened between them, beyond Will, that remained inside a cloud of ash and pain, and he struggled to settle and place them inside the gentle gold of the Alpha's loving eyes today. 

The experiments. The lies. The deaths.

So when the memories of dark days and trauma refused to be locked away, those were the moments the colors wavered, and the certainties shredded like bedsheets. Once the walls of the basement would crumble, Will feared what it would unleash inside himself.

Would his love for Hannibal prove unconditional, even when the hidden memories and fearful nightmares would form shackles around his arms and legs?

The fear left in him was a dot in the universe. But it was a dot he longed to crush in the palm of his hand, until the remains washed away beneath the playful waves of their endless, platinum ocean.

He loved him.

Will had departed the bus at his stop, and settled himself on a short, stone wall out of view of Freddie's office building. There, he pushed the gun into the inner pocket of his coat and watched the wooden door, the welcome mat, the fern in the pot. 

Waiting in calm, motionless silence.

Ralph had been the first to leave; coming out of the building in a white tank top, blue shorts, white socks and trainers and a camera bag over his shoulder. With a flash of the headlights of his mint green Cadillac Deville, he was off. Thick, gray smoke cheerily following after.

One gone, two to go.

Then, seven past one, Rose and Ewan had finally emerged through the door together. Will watched them, remembering her swift reply to his message: _What a fun surprise to find you here Ewan! I would love to go out to lunch with you!_ He also remembered Ewan's short reply of: _OK. See you at work._

Not quite the eloquence of a Cyrano de Bergerac.

The man was confused at how a message had reached her from his inbox, but he wasn't stupid enough to question it and ruin his chance of a date with the lovely Rose. She giggled, talking shyly but animatedly as they stepped down the stairs, and Ewan ducked his head into his collar and smiled sheepishly a everything the woman said to him. 

Struck by his own luck.

A lovely match, Will decided, as he watched her hand curl in the crook of his arms while they saundered away down the length of the street. For a lengthy, cozy lunch date.

And two makes three.

He pulled the envelope out of his pocket, and shook the freshly pressed key into his palm. 

_Oh Freddie._

This one was not for the poetry, or the art – he could not afford any extra risk of being caught. His link to her was open, traceable. No. This one was for self-preservation and integrity, for both himself and Hannibal. For the world.

That notwithstanding, there was a ice-blue spark that lit inside his chest, as the wolf beneath his skin blinked open his challenging, feral eyes.

**

“I found you snooping around in my shed,” Will spoke melancholy as he crossed his arms before his chest and supported his weight against the door frame. “Where you were looking for the animal I was so carefully trying to conceal.”

Freddie snorted, as she crossed her legs and folded her small hands in her lap. “Are you talking about Randall Tier, or yourself?” she fired, and Will smiled at the clever retort. “Randall,” he offered, before taking the nearest deckchair and turned it to sit with his arms over the rest. Blocking the doorway. “You have yet to discover mine.” 

Freddie kept her lips tight and her chin up, but Will could see she was afraid. Her light brows were low above her squinting eyes, and a small layer of sweat shimmered beneath her perfect nose.

“But this time,” Will trailed, as he leaned his elbows on the back of the chair, “we are in your colorless office instead.”

“...And it is _me_ seeking out _you._ ”

Orange curls bounced with the sharp tilt of Freddie's head, and her eyes widened briefly on his features.  
“...Will,” she said, drawing out his name as braced the armrests of her seat with her hands and began to slowly rise herself up from her chair. 

It took one flash of his held-up hand to bring her back down. 

“Stay seated,” he ordered, with a voice that never stepped beyond polite but was laced with an authority that flowed from the wolf that pranced proudly beneath the surface.

“What did you think was going to happen, Freddie?” he asked her pleasantly, as he rolled the chair closer with a push of his toes. “I know you thought you could outsmart me,” 

He watched her high-heeled feet push herself back an inch and smiled around pressed lips. “But did you honestly think you could outsmart Hannibal Lecter?”

He studied her pale face and mascara lashes as she blinked at him, and pursed those painted lips. She didn't have to speak for Will to know the answers. “No,” he said, as a brief smile flashed his teeth bare. “But you have managed to both overestimate _and_ underestimate _my_ powers regarding Hannibal.”

He watched how the heels of her feet came loose inside her red pumps. She was trying to kick them off without him noticing, figuring she wouldn't be able to outrun him. She could use them as a weapon, would he allow her to surprise him. 

He chuckled, as the wolf breathed hot air through damp nostrils. The beast wanted to let her. The animal wanted a chase.

Freddie Lounds had considered the relationship between him and Hannibal 'fully established', and therefore something she could manipulate. If she hooked one fish, she would reel in two. But she had been too forward in thinking that Will could simply convince his mate to do her bidding. 

She had been too forward in thinking Will's priorities had remained unchanged.

“You thought I would arrange this for you, considering my reputation is something we bargained over before.” His lips pushed against his teeth as he remembered her article about his questionable sanity. Freddie's biting words rang clear inside his mind today: 

_“I can undo what I said. I can also make it a lot worse.”_

She swallowed visibly under her smooth neck, but kept her eyes steady, challengingly, on his. Below her chair, she tried to toe her shoes further off her stocking-covered feet. Slippery, those would be on the laminate floor.

“You thought we'd rather be labeled romantic murders,” Will said, humming lightly over his words as one corner of his lips curved into a crooked smile, “...rather than pornographic beasts.” Freddie shifted her jaw, and he watched her wrinkle her nose at him.

“Oh, I like that line,” she mocked him, orange hair stark against her pale skin. “Have _you_ ever considered a career in...” 

She tried to kick-start a game - something she was skilled at. She tried to win what was left for her to gain, but Will wasn't playing anymore. There were no games left with room for two. “No more careers,” he said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. “Those days are well behind me.”

She flinched when he stood, and pushed her chair back with her feet until it hit the wall behind her.  
“You're not like him,” she said, as her hands clenched the seat of her chair. “You're not like Hannibal Lecter.”

He watched her big, calculating eyes on him, trying innocence and vulnerability while secretly scouting all her possibilities. He tilted his head with thought, as he walked to a desk he remembered to be Bryan Mann's. “I'm not,” he answered her honestly, as his leather glove traced the spotless length of the keyboard. There were no pictures on the desk. No novelty mug or hand sanitizer. No character to be identified.

“You don't take pleasure in cruelty,” Freddie pushed, and Will lowered his eyes, smiling his teeth bare at the obstacle course she was tunneling under. Refusing to beg him for her life, and reduced to becoming the rabbit, trying to find morality in the hunter, trapped against the barrel of his gun. “I don't,” he replied, before turning back to look at her. Her pumps were off her feet, while her fingers clawed at the clasps of the purse by her ankles.

Two steps towards her, and she was quick to straighten back on her chair. 

“But _you_ do.” 

He watched her blue eyes flash with startled indignity, and for a moment, she looked like a jungle cat with the long pupils and the solid gems for irises. “I...”

“I _do_ take pleasure in justice...” he pushed over her, as he sat himself against the edge of Freddie's desk. No, Freddie wasn't a rabbit. By no means was she a furry critter. Freddie was the stingray in the friendly water, far from her natural habitat. 

“Retribution,” Will completed, and watched her head tilt stiffly with alert, ready to meet him, verbally. 

But he wasn't here for that. 

He placed his hand on the desk beside her, and lowered his eyelids enough to patronize. “This was a very, very bold idea, Freddie,” he said, bringing his voice to a challenging hush. “Almost admirable.”

Her petite features scrunched up like those of a proud peacock, reaching and stretching her neck. “Thank you,” she bit at him, straightening her spine with the promise of an attack, would he reach.

Will smiled. She was as fragile as the skeleton of small bird in the palm of his hand. Her bones were thin, her skin was transparent over long muscles, and with a press of his thumbs, he could push her cheekbones into her wiry skull and watch her collapse like a fossil of twigs, ashes and dust. 

He wanted to.

“But we've crossed the point of no return,” he purred, and heard the pleasure hum beneath the tendrils of his voice. “You _know_ this, Freddie.” He watched her, smelled her perfume of jasmine and rosemary, and witnessed her solid eyes burn with fight, schemes... fear.

He remembered her scent lingering in his hospital room when he had woken from Hannibal's knife wound in his lower belly. 

For that welcome alone, he wished to see her burn.

Ashes to ashes.

Like her likeness rolling down the hill in a wheelchair, Freddie Lounds deserved to go up in hellish flames. For all those people who's lives she had torched with her stories, and for those she had scorched to black with her tongue.

“You knew the risk,” he said, as he traced her desk with a leather finger. Her eyes flashed poison, wide and bright, but she didn't dare move. Once more, Will wondered what she saw, looking at him with both terror and awe. Whether she saw Hannibal in his eyes, or the Omega wolf.

“You tried very hard to keep yourself safe...” he said, gesturing casually around the dull, empty room. “...but you've been looking at this all wrong, Freddie.” He pushed himself off the desk, and watched her turn the chair to follow his movements. He flashed a hint of teeth, and watch his fangs reflect in her startled eyes. 

“Things have changed since that time I chased you around my shed.”

Freddie's nose twitched and her red nails dug into her palms as Will watched the tension wave over her body. “My becoming...” he spoke languidly as his tongue stroked over the tip of his fangs. 

“...and the figures on your bank account.”

There was a silence where he saw her bones freeze beneath her rigid muscles, and he enjoyed the sight, openly.

“Your becoming?” Freddie croaked with a shiver along the small, red-painted lips, and Will heard his wolf growling needily behind his skin. His nails itched inside his fingers, and his spine curled freely beneath his back. “I'm an Omega,” he hummed, as his eyes breached the clock on the wall. “And _you_ are bankrupt - which is why you found the courage to arrange all 'this'.” He gestured playfully between the two of them, as he watched Freddie's complexion of peaches and cream turned a blueish ash. 

She would have made it one hell of an article.

He envisioned her creation of pages and pages on Hannibal's miserable childhood, Will's own problems with his mother and father, and their established connection over abandonment, trauma and death. Comradery and eventually romance would be build on the horrors of their crimes, and would introduce them as the historical duo known as...

_Murder husbands; Would **you** kill for love?  
By Freddie Lounds ___

__Something along those lines..._ _

__“It would have made you a nice buck,” Will huffed, as he stepped back to the desk of Rose Hill. “Not 700,000 dollars nice, but...” His fingers reached for his messenger bag as he flashed his eyes to Freddie, still and sharp like a bell of thin glass._ _

__She would have the pictures of the scarcely clothed lovers, wrapped in an intimate embrace. She would make them tell her about his first and only heat, and what the experience had been like. She would have asked them questions so invasive it would barely differ from just publishing their prison tapes on the public news._ _

__“Well... maybe.”_ _

__He scoffed. Who was he kidding? Freddie would have been a millionaire._ _

__She stared at him, pale and cold, and he wondered if her skin would feel like ice beneath his fingers._ _

__“You signed the contract...” she said, voice equally frosted, “...to make me feel safe.” And Will smiled at her, before his hand wrapped around the bottle in his bag._ _

__He took it out from its leather hold. Blue plastic holding colorless liquid. “You were never convinced,” he scoffed at her, and watched her lips twitch into a grimace. She had needed so badly for her plan to work out. Badly enough for her not to see why it wouldn't._ _

__“But the need for money makes you jump all sorts of hoops, doesn't it Freddie?” he offered, before he placed the bottle in front of her. Their eyes met, hard, as Will saw his own blues light up on the moisture of hers. “Even the ones on fire.”_ _

__Her toes pushed her back, and one hand grasped the edge of her desk with fierce determination. Venom, more than dread. “I'm looking at jail time,” she sneered, surprising him with the fiery confession. Her curls shook with a light tremor he couldn't detect on her body. “Two decades of it.”_ _

__Her frantic eyes flashed to the bottle as Will sat back in Rose's desk chair, and curled his hands around the edge. “The extortion of people is expensive, Freddie,” he remarked, and watched her pupils blow wide with hidden visions._ _

__“I wouldn't survive,” she breathed as her smooth voice got caught in her throat, and Will bit his lower lip when a bright spark lit within his sternum. The leering wolf smelled fear. Blood._ _

__“You shouldn't, Freddie,” he offered, before placing his leather hands on his knees, leaning forward. “You're a disease,” he told her gently, and watched every breath tremble around her nostrils. “A virus.” Will held her eyes with an unforgiving pull. “I knew from the moment I met you, I wanted to see you destroyed.”_ _

__He closed his eyes, so very briefly, and remembered how he used to dream of her pale, dead eyes staring endlessly into nothing. Gone._ _

__Her lips spasmed over her perfect teeth and her eyes narrowed on him with an open, vicious hatred that he had seen hidden in the pools of blue since the first time he looked into them. “Because you knew I knew, before anyone else, that you had a monster in you,” she hissed, and her words made him smile around closed lips as his wolf rumbled behind his chest._ _

__“The feeling was mutual,” he agreed, a slice of lightheartedness within the dark words built with years of animosity. “You've tried very hard to destroy me.”_ _

__The breaths that stroked the inside of her nose were calm but deep, fluent, but hard. Will admired her, always, almost as much as he wished for her end. “I could forgive you, for any of it,” he told her, almost ruefully. “But not for Abigail.”_ _

__Oh, he remembered Freddie's calling card in Abigail's fingers. Her determined expression when she told him and Hannibal that she wanted Miss Lounds to write her story, tell all, because she'd felt it to be the only option to gain a place back in the world._ _

__“Abigail?” Freddie lashed with surprise, as her nose scrunched up and her eyes squinted to slits. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to cut the life out of her throat with his fingernails. Instead, he watched her straighten on her chair. “I didn't do...”_ _

__The Omega bared his teeth, and Will felt his fangs flash sharply. “You played her like a rag doll,” he growled, and watched her open flinch. “You used her for your own gain.” His voice was raw, wild with a rumble that burst from his throat, and Freddie clenched the desk, ducking into her shoulders._ _

“That's the way business deals work,” she was brave enough to snip. “We would _both_ have gained...” But Will's flat hand landed hard on her desk, and the plastic bottle trembled against the metal table top. 

“ _You_ put her up against me,” he spat, and his lip curled over his teeth as he leaned into her with his fury on his features. His rage was real, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed it, out. 

__“ _You_ told her terrible things about me and manipulated, prevented...” But Freddie moved her head back, away from him, as her hands dared to come and push against his collarbones. _ _

__“I wasn't the one who faked her death,” she screeched, as she tried to force a distance between them. “Or hid her in my house and slit her throat.”_ _

Will snarled, but allowed her hands to push him back until the distance between them was civilized. “Have you forgiven _him_ for that?” she challenged him hoarsely, red spots on her neck. 

__Will felt the words like an old, thick newspaper, trying to digest in his stomach. Accompanied with images of a knife to Abigail's throat, and the lost terror in Hannibal's amber eyes. Blood had burst from the veins, onto the skin, and soaked her clothes before she'd found her way to the floor. Holding her throat and choking to death as he watched her die, and did nothing._ _

__For the second time, he could do nothing to save Abigail Hobbs._ _

__Had he forgiven Hannibal?_ _

_“Hannibal. I forgive you.”_

“In a specific mindset, Freddie,” he admitted, as he felt the strain washing from his back. There was a part of him, alive in him, that ran cold with the memory; still felt the grief, and still felt the pain. The betrayal. It was tucked away in a most particular place. The basement in _his_ home. 

__“One with lots of hearts to frame the cloud?” Freddie dared, and Will clacked his tongue with a sudden dash of unexpected amusement. In a way, yes, the one with the hearts framing the memories. Love had made the bad blood between them stream under the current of pumping, fresh red._ _

__He stood up, once more, from the desk chair, and allowed his eyes to slide over the empty work spaces. Twenty past one, said the clock on the wall. “You surrounded yourself with common folk, thinking I wouldn't harm the harmless,” he spoke, gesturing casually to the ghosts around them before he turned a sharp eye back to Freddie. Her hand was, once more, fumbling with the clasp of her bag._ _

__“Which is true,” he smiled, watching her retract her hand under his eyes. Her pumps were off her feet, and stockings lay by her bare heels. One turn of his back, and Freddie became that cunning fox his Omega wanted to sniff out, purring at the scent of overzealous bravery, and fear._ _

__“You had it all well thought out,” he offered her. “But surprise dental emergencies and the tumultuous ways of love are impossible to predict.”_ _

__She seemed to shrink on her chair as she watched him with pale cheeks beneath perfect skin. The little mouse, hiding the greedy sewer rat. “My colleagues will be here soon,” she told him. She warned him. Will pressed his lips down and shrugged. “Just one,” he told her before he raised sharp ocean eyes full of promises up to Freddie's drowning blue. “I'll allow it.”_ _

__His fingers traced the lining of his coat, feeling the gun snugly beneath the fabric and his chest, before he reached for his bag, and took out the envelope he had safely secured against the leather. When he turned, Freddie's chair had moved further left, towards the door, and Will felt his teeth twitch inside his mouth._ _

“I need you to write me one last article, Freddie,” he said, as he placed the envelope on her desk, blocking her chair with his body. “ _In the saddle_... isn't that the expression?” 

__He leaned in, both hands on her desk, as he revealed those itching teeth from behind his lips. “Write me a story.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh I got soooo much knee support from you guys!! Thank you so so much for all the knee love, I appreciate so so hard! For now, I got my own wheelchair, which I'm thinking of 'pimping' if recovery will take a long time:-P Because the new, ambitious task for my 'good' knee to run double knee shifts turned out to be too much! Now it is fucked it up tool! Can you believe it?! Two sad knees! At least they have each other...
> 
> Thank you all so much for the messages and comments and kudo's and love! I read EVERYTHING and I love and appreciate and cherish ALL of them!! Hope you enjoyed this chapter ^.^ It's getting a little bit Hannibal disturbing at this point, but there are kisses in the stars! Promise!


	54. Chapter 54

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He put his filthy hands on you,” the Alpha hissed with great revulsion, and Will sucked his bleeding lip into his mouth. Painfully aroused by the copper taste, and Hannibal's wild and feral outrage. Possessive.
> 
> “I put my hands on him,” he corrected his mate as he smirked into a heated kiss, where Hannibal's tongue chased the taste of his blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: People get killed in this chapter. (Not Hannibal or Will!!)

Dennis was the one who greeted him in the entrance hall. 

“I'm staying overnight,” Will said before the guard could speak, and dumped his keys and cellphone on the tray. Dennis' careful, gloved fingers padded down his arms and legs as he nodded his blond head. “Certainly, sir,” he said, his voice laced with polite authority, before he hushed in a: “Glad to hear it too, mister Graham. He's been very anxious.”

The walk was short, but the wait for the signed documents to authorize his sleepover was not, and as Will paced the waiting area like a lost, caged bird, he realized his hands were shaking. They hadn't shaken when he had left the office building, nor when he'd turned the key. They were shaking now, because of Hannibal. Anticipation, excitement, desperation.

When he finally walked into the room, his Alpha's back was turned as two guards handcuffed him through the holes, but Will could see those shoulders vibrating with the same devastating hunger. The same crippling craving to reach out, hold and have and love and devour until hearts beat within one chest, surrounded by the same cage of ribs.

“Will,” the Alpha breathed longingly as the Omega stepped into the cell. His mate looked tired and soft, despite the moving strength beneath his carefully restrained muscles. His name on Hannibal's lips was a sigh, a prayer, and Will shivered when a high whine responded from his own throat at the sound.

“Hannibal.”

Golden eyes were on him like a clawing cat, pulling and yanking impatiently with nothing but his starving gaze as Will waited for the guards to undo the handcuffs from his mate's wrists. His knuckles crackled and his weight was on his toes. 

So close...

The moment seemed to last a lifetime, with eyes that crashed hard on each other and pained whimpering that colored the space around them to unbearable. It had been too long. Anything would be too long.

The moment Hannibal was freed from confinement and metal snapped off wrists, there was a blur of movement, growls and whines and the wet noises of lips finding lips in open, frenzied kisses. 

“God, Hannibal.”

 _Oh God._ Finally, he could wrap his arms around real shoulders of flesh and bone, and at last, he could inhale the scent of winter fire deep into his lungs, and feel it sooth and revive him through every layer in his body.

The Alpha was warm and strong and home. His lips were demanding, claiming, taking, and his mouth was teeth and tongue and snarling surrender. Hands fisted in hair and clawed on clothing, and in the chaos of beating heart and hungry flesh, they found peace.

Wheezing for a breath, Will allowed himself to bury his face against his mate's temple and moan out at the wrecking beauty that was Hannibal's raining lips on his cheek, his jaw, his neck.

“You don't know how I've longed to hold you,” the Alpha growled almost angrily against Will's neck, who huffed at the words with a laughing, broken sob. “I do,” he mewled openly, and his fingers tightened in the back of Hannibal's hair as he arched his body flush against his mate. 

This was the first time they'd been together, in the flesh, since their talk by the fountain of Neptune. This was the first time they could touch, and taste and truly connect beyond their mind, since Hannibal had sunken to his knees before him. Since he had looked up into his eyes with such vulnerable honesty, and...

“Gasoline,” Hannibal groaned against his skin as his tongue licked a stripe from Will's throat to his ear. The Omega whimpered like a lost pup at the feel and scent of his mate, and his skin tightened with goosebumps, as slick started to coat the inside his underwear. 

_“Fuck.”_

When Hannibal tried to pull back, Will grasped the Alpha's jumpsuit and clung to him with a pitiless whine and sharp teeth flashing against his mate's throat. The Alpha inhaled when Will's hands reached for the labels of his suit, before clutching his fingers into his grasp. “You fired a gun,” he spoke, bringing fingertips to his flaring nostrils, as Will watched the black eyes, framed by thin, heated gold.

Hands came down Will's back, his hips, up his belly and his chest as Hannibal manhandled him with pushes and pulls, further into the room. The dominance sprung from hopeless relief, and it made Will's head spin with delight as Hannibal touched every crease and curve of his body with searching hands. 

Not grabbing, exploring, or wandering.

Searching. Frantic, searching hands.

Hannibal was worried. Hannibal was checking every inch of him, and Will let it happen as he stole soft, tasting kisses against the Alpha's tense face. 

He smiled when the Alpha sighed relief into his ear and brought up his hands to frame Will's face. “You're not wounded,” he said, as Will opened a lazy smile against the hands of his Alpha. The worry, the care, was something he had yet to take for granted after a lifetime without a single lick of it. “No,” he affirmed softly and eyes shimmered together like drifting candles on a quiet pond, before hands tightened on his jaw and his face was pulled forward in a destructive kiss of teeth and punishment.

Heat burned hard inside Will's core as he challenged his Alpha with snapping fangs of his own, and Hannibal sucked on his tongue as his hands started pushing up Will's shirt, over his bare skin. 

“Show me,” he growled, as he pushed Will back with rough hands, leading him back towards the bed. Will knew what he was asking for. He wanted to see what had happened. He wanted to see what Will had done.

“Fuck me,” Will countered with a feral snarl, as his hands wrung tightly in Hannibal's jumpsuit, and pulled the bigger, stronger man on top of him on the mattress.

Their eyes met, blazing fire and joy, before their mouths collided, and their minds opened.

**

“It's finished,” Freddie had told him after slow, long, ticking minutes of sharp nails on plastic keys. The noise had been the only sound in the office space, and Will had to hand it to her with both hands: she was quick, and she was good.

He watched her cram out clever sentence after sentence, until the pages had filled, and the appropriate picture was added. She did this every day, and she could do it, even now. “Good,” Will approved, placing one hand lightly on her shoulder. Not with pressure, but with power. “Upload it to your website.”

The Tattle-Crime. 

She stiffened tightly under his touch but took his orders without question, and began to prepare the document for transferring. 

“You didn't know about this?” he pried, one eyebrow up with playful skepticism as he gestured to the screen of her computer. “I'd think you would have dissected all of your coworkers' records before you came to hide out here.” Her jaw clenched beneath smooth skin as he moved to sit at the chair beside hers, and rolled his lip between his teeth. 

“Or was it just convenient that he knows how to land a punch?” 

He watched her eyes spit fire as she turned to him. Color high on her cheeks and neck. “It's none of my business,” she sneered boldly at him, and Will's snort turned into a whole-hearted laugh with a deep push from his lungs, and a tremble from his gut. 

“That's a lesson learned too late, Freddie,” he huffed, and shook his head as he turned his chair to get up from his seat.

It was then, he felt the sharp heel of a pump, hammering into the back of his head.

**

“God. Hannibal, please,” Will cried as fingers worked fast over the buttons of his shirt. His jeans were already off his hips, and his shoes were lost inside the room. Hot lips sucked into the skin of his neck as worrying fingers crept up from his shoulders to his crown. A small, crusted lump hid inside his curls, and Hannibal hissed fury against his skin before he pulled away, and watched Will with shimmering snake eyes.

“She injured you,” he snarled, fangs fully exposed and whites turning red, as Will reached for the Alpha's jumpsuit to pull him back down, and push him out of his uniform.

“Oh yes,” he smirked into Hannibal's soft, silver hair. “She got me.”

**

Will turned around with the instinct of his ready wolf; fast and furious, and with a wild growl from his throat as he reached to grab hold of the shoe in Freddie's hand. On the heel, clung his blood. She cried out at the speed and the force of his movements, and tumbled backwards in shock, hitting the wall behind her desk.

Her head thumped dryly against the stone, as his fangs flashed and his wolf hunched and snarled and pushed for room inside his bones. Fur raised at the neck and eyes alight with the hopes of a glorious hunt. 

But Freddie didn't crumble. Freddie didn't yield. She had barely collapsed onto the floor before she was up on her bare feet again, ready to fight, to claw, to run. 

But there would be no hunt. The wolf's desires couldn't be served today. 

One long fingernail came to push against her windpipe when she tried to launch for him, and the simple, yet cruel pressure was enough to bring her back down to the floor. 

The wolf was breathed down, as Will urged him to lie low. Calm. Contained. Alert.

Will towered over her small frame, and watched her eyes looking up at him with open anguish. Fangs pushed into his lower lip, when the sight made him smile. “There's no need to fight this, Freddie,” he patronized her, like the dirt beneath his shoe. “This is a battle you've long lost.”

Her breathing stuttered, and Will could see her pale face shining icy blue under his gaze. “Y-you...” she stuttered, and Will licked along his lips. “I did tell you,” he said. “I'm not the man from the shed.” 

Her eyes flickered heavily around his features, and Will watched her watching him. Seeing him. Seeing the wolf, now that she was really looking. 

“Not anymore.”

And he felt proud.

“You're an animal,” she hissed, her voice weak and fragile with the stunned horror her could see etched into her pretty features. She was shocked. She was terrified. Like many others, Freddie had not done any research on the subject that reached beyond colorful internet pages and romance novels. 

It was more than the sex, the heats, the uncontrolled need for a mate and the hopeless desire for a true, deeply rooted bond.

“The foundation of an Omega is not limited to romantic love stories,” he mocked her, and felt the satisfaction of her open fear deep inside his belly. He wasn't a love-sick pet.

He was a savage.

A beast, and a man. Strong and wild, calculated and controlled. He was smart, without emotional cobwebs to catch on his brain. 

He was an Omega. One half of a whole. And even in the state of half, he was _more_ than any human could ever be. Whole, he knew he would be invincible.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

**

“Ahh,” Will moaned helplessly as Hannibal tossed his jeans on the prison floor, and wrapped a hot, large hand around the leaking cock against Will's belly. The Alpha was wildly lost in Will's powerful memory, while mouthing at Will's exposed skin and rubbing his still concealed erection against his naked thigh. Eyes glazed – grunting and open, panting lips.

Will hissed when his slick trickled down from between his cheeks, where the drops were caught by Hannibal's fingers, and used as lubricant on the Omega's cock. “Oh, Christ.” 

Will used his feet to push the jumpsuit over his mate's hips, as he rocked into the pumping hand on his erection. Finally, allowed to be without control... kept and cared for.

Hannibal's rock hard erection sprang from the suit as the fabric was kicked past the swell of his ass, and Will yanked his mate up by his hair to align their bodies, and slide together. Belly to belly, thighs to thighs, and the hard, hot flesh of their leaking cocks. He needed Hannibal against him, on him, around him and inside him.

“Show me how you killed them,” Hannibal groaned into his ear.

**

The man in the doorway had the stocky build, the bushy brown beard, and the dark eyes that Will expected to show. And those very eyes widened at the sight of the Omega, standing proudly in the middle of the office space with speckles of blood decorating the skin of his neck. 

“Mister Mann,” Will greeted his guest cordially as he turned his head towards the doorway. “The man I was hoping to show.” He smiled humorlessly over his teeth, as his cold eyes pulled at Bryan Mann, frozen in the door frame. 

Freddie was an opponent. This man was just prey. 

Diseased prey.

He watched the man drop his bag absently by his feet as his eyes darted sharply through the room. Before either could speak, however, Freddie's voice sounded from behind him with a harsh, panicked whisper. “Help me, Bryan. _He wants to kill me._ ”

Oh Freddie. Even her dignity could not be spared.

“What's going on?” Bryan asked, his eyes growing frantic as he watched Freddie on her chair, looking at him with terror in her big blue eyes. Only her innocence was a performance, this time, he knew. The emotion, for once, was very real.

But he paid her no mind as he gestured to Bryan's empty desk.

“Have a seat,” he spoke calmly, as the eyes of his wolf crossed hard with those of muddy brown, dripping with apprehension and confusion. Will licked his lips at the poorly concealed fear and loathing he could see in the pretentious, narcissistic man, as his beast thrived and arched under the layers of his skin.

Wanting to play.

“I remember you,” Bryan gasped with sudden, maniacal eyes, and his finger pointing straight at Will's chest. Will wanted to bite that finger until the bone splintered beneath his teeth, and press down until his jaws closed on each other. Instead, he tilted his head towards the chair as an unmistakable order, wrapped in an invitation. 

But Bryan wouldn't sit. Bryan stayed on his feet, face flushed beneath his beard. “What the fuck is...” he rambled, as his eyes darted from Freddie to Will, and back again. Pushing his luck, pushing his boundaries. Pushing Will.

Rude.

_Click._

The gun was in Will's hand and pointed straight between the eyes of Mister Mann, the Omega smiling calmly at the wide eyes, surrounded by shimmering sweat. “I think I offered you a seat,” he repeated patiently, as the gun pointed briefly at the deckchair before moving back up between Bryan's twitching eyebrows. “Let's not be impolite."

Freddie, behind him, gasped sharply in her seat. Rigid and silent, hands off her purse.

Bryan took the chair, and slowly lowered himself into the seat as arms and legs trembled and struggled to keep his weight and balance. He watched Will's eyes. He watched the sharp teeth resting on Will's lower lip. “Who the fuck are you?” he croaked, voice high, weak. Damaged. Afraid. _“What the fuck are you?”_

Will knew he saw the wolf. And the wolf saw Bryan Mann.

“I'm Will Graham,” he spoke formally, before he reached out a hand for his messenger bag. Duct tape. In the package in his bag, he had hidden two full rolls of it. “And I'm an old acquaintance of our dear Freddie Lounds.”

He moved the gun to his left hand as he walked back over to Bryan's chair, and pushed his nail beneath the ending of the tape. The man was stocky. He was going to need the whole thing.

“As to _what_ I am...” he continued, as he watched Bryan's eyes grow comically large at the sight of his approach. The tape zipped loudly, as Will pulled an arm's length off the roll. “I'm afraid that remains an ongoing, endless journey of discovery.”

Freddie moved on her chair behind him, and Will's head snapped around to see her up out of her chair. In the same instant, Bryan kicked at his legs and pushed him back with his arms, making the Omega stumble half a step forward.

Before he could catch his balance, Bryan Mann jumped on his back.

**

Hannibal pulled Will's lower lip between his teeth with an angry pull that broke the skin. 

“Fuck,” Will groaned, as he pushed his hips up to slide his hard, wet cock over the soft belly hair of his growling mate.

“He put his filthy hands on you,” the Alpha hissed with great revulsion, and Will sucked his bleeding lip into his mouth. Painfully aroused by the copper taste, and Hannibal's wild and feral outrage. Possessive.

“I put my hands on _him_ ,” he corrected his mate as he smirked into a heated kiss, where Hannibal's tongue chased the taste of his blood.

**

Freddie's head was bleeding. A thick trickle of red ran down her forehead as she sat timidly and shaken on her desk chair. Skin as pale as fresh snow. Hair as bright as a new autumn.

He had hit her first, moving forward with speed and strength beyond his humanity as a feral growl escaped his lips. He had pushed her backwards with such little effort, and watched her head hit the edge of the desk with a dead blow that left her still and motionless for a solid thirty seconds. 

But not more. Freddie was tough and seasoned beneath the supple exterior.

One flex of his shoulders, and Bryan was on the floor. One turn of his back, and the man was staring up at him from his place on the laminate, pale skin and tears of terror in his muddy eyes. He screeched like a swine when Will hauled him up by the hair, and pushed him back into his seat. No effort, no strain. 

This time, Bryan only whimpered when Will taped him thoroughly to the back of the chair, as blood welled up from the scratches beneath his hair and seeped past his temples.

Everything was silent, but for the rumble in Will's ears.

“I'm pleased you made it here in time,” Will told the shaken man with a calm that would never betray what had taken place between them, bare minutes ago. “I wanted to show you something.” The man was bound by tape from shoulders to knees, and Will pushed the rolling chair aside to lean over the keyboard on the desk. 

A quick type in the browser showed the colorful website of Freddie Lounds.

At the top of the page, there was a large, bright photograph of the stocky, bearded man.

Bryan's eyes froze wide on his own name and face, prominent on the popular website, and his face turned a sick shade of purple gray. Freddie, on her seat by her desk, blinked dazed over her sightless eyes, as half her face slowly caked with blood.

Will inhaled sharply through his nose, and the scent of blood settled pleasantly on his tongue. “You beat your wife...” he hummed, as he moved to lean on the back of Bryan's chair, speaking over the bound man's shoulder and staring at the loud screen. “...left her with your children, and took every penny.”

The wolf hummed pleasantly through Will's nostrils, as the sharp nails ripped through the foam of the cushioned backrest of the chair. “I think it's time to give something back.”

Will's sharp ears heard Bryan's breathing deepen, stop, then quicken. It was a rewarding melody, a song to Will's own efforts. “No,” the man choked terror. “No, I didn't...” Teeth clenched, and Will could feel the lie dying in the man's throat. Then, fear and impotence turned to panic, and anger. 

“This is ridiculous,” the man hissed, sweat trickling and mingling with the blood on his temples. “You have no idea what you're... This will ruin me.” Muscles tensed against the tape, and Will blinked lazily at the struggle enfolding before him on the chair. The wolf in him loved to play, like a cat with a wounded bird. The man in him loved to punish.

Mister Mann had a reputation, a position, responsibility and regard.

“It will outlive you,” Will corrected him, a foretelling smile around his lips. “What's ruined is all done by your own efforts.”

He walked around the chair, and perched himself on top of the bound man's desk, allowing him the perfect view of both Freddie and Bryan. Both of them bloody, pale and frightened. Both of them worthy of the state they were in.

The sight and the thought made Will's spine roll with serene satisfaction, and he flexed his shoulders as his toes curled inside his shoes. He wanted to go to Hannibal, push his nose under the Alpha's chin, and allow his mate to smell the blood on him, the violence, the justice and the beauty.

“Why are you doing this to me?” the wounded, bewildered man asked him with a new pitch to his voice, and open, bleeding veins lacing his eyes. Will took his time to turn his fiery blue eyes on him and lifted a crooked smile over a pointed fang. “I don't like you, Bryan,” he spoke casually, as he rolled his neck and heard the sharpened spine shift under the flesh. “You hide behind the mask of the _respectable man_.” Will's eyes narrowed, lids twitching briefly over the orbs. “But underneath, you're vermin.”

The swallow that followed was audible, as Will clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “So, I'm giving you motive for murder,” he explained, gesturing a hand to the open web page. “The murder of your coworker, Freddie Lounds, to be precise.” His eyes flashed to the orange curls, and watched how the blood from her head was spilling on her pristine jacket. Blue eyes were wide. The fight, nearly vanished. “... _And_ an honest representation of your character.”

A sob broke from Bryan's rough throat, and there was almost an innocence in the way he shook his head, and the muscles trembled on his upper lip. “Why?” he cried, and Will sighed, crossing his ankles and holding the edge of the desk with stretched arms.

He huffed through his nose, and heard the wolf rumble. “Because it benefits me,” he said, and tilted his head, smiling friendly at the bleeding man he wished to shred with his bare teeth. “And because you are deserving of it.”

It was time.

He pushed himself off the desk, and passed the hyperventilating form of Bryan to cross the room.

“Your death is my gift to the world,” he said. “And to someone I know will appreciate the beauty of it.”

**

Feral teeth scratched along Will's jaw, as Hannibal's nails dug possessively into his waist.

“I'm a very controlled man, Will,” husk words were whispered as fangs snapped along the skin of his throat. “But you are tearing apart every layer of it.” Hot lips captured his, tasting the savage, brutal need, the frantic desire to become whole by consuming the other. “You reduce me to foolish phrases.” Large hands rubbed firmly up his ribs. “But you drive me insane.”

Will moaned, sobbed, as he clawed at Hannibal's naked back and rutted against the hot, strong body that pressed down on him. Wetness formed in the corners of his eyes, as he squeezed them shut, and pulled Hannibal's neck down with both hands. He wanted no air between them. He tolerated no space, no room, between their skin.

Fingers framed and clawed at Hannibal's face, as he brought both legs around the Alpha's back, and an endless whimper vibrated through both bodies as Hannibal breathed hot and deep against his mouth. 

“Burn them,” he instructed.

**

“Give me your phone, Freddie,” Will said, as he reached out his gloved hand to the woman on the chair. Her eyes were large and wet like a fish in a tank. It took a moment for his words to land, but when they did, a bit of life stirred back onto her face, as her nose scrunched up.

“I don't have it,” she told him, and flinched when he huffed and kicked her purse from beneath her chair. Her searching fingers had long given away its location.

“Open your bag,” he humored her, by ignoring her blunt lie. “Take out your phone.”

Her hands smeared the device with blood, but with a timid, quivering rummage of her fingers, the plastic cellphone found its way into Will's gloved hand. Despite her head wound and her fear, she still managed to look livid, offended, proud. He was never disappointed by Freddie.

Her phone was everything, he knew. Inside lay the foundation of her empire, and he was quick to scroll down her e-mail, contacts and exchanges of the past two, three weeks. He knew exactly what he was looking for.

He stood beside Freddie, eyes on the screen, as she sat near his legs and shot poison at him through her hazy eyes. 

“What are you doing?” sounded Bryan's outraged squeak at her. “Do something. Attack him. Punch him.” The panic and desperation rang clear, open in the way he addressed her, for all to hear.

Freddie looked at him. Not with apology or dread, but with that very same anger, directed straight at the pathetic man that was her colleague. Bryan was foolish, stupid. Weak.

She was not.

Will inhaled deeply through his nose, never taking his eyes off the screen. “That's exactly the reason you are here, Mister Mann,” he casually sighed at the bound man in the chair. “That's just no way to communicate.”

The phone rolled in the palm of his hand with a flex of his fingers, before his eyes locked with hard brown, and blood. “I suppose that's a lesson never learned, for you.”

Bryan's jaw tightened, before his frantic eyes shot to the gun, now abandoned on Rose's desk. “Are you going to shoot us?” he wheezed, as his muscles struggled pointlessly against the tight, firm grip the tape had on his body. Thin lips shimmered with sweat. “Look man, you already got me. Real good, OK?” And here it was again. The rabbit under the barrel, trying to wriggle out. “If this is a strife with her, I promise I won't tell anyone...”

Will didn't even hear the undignified rambling. Disguised pleas. Too proud to beg openly for his life. 

His attention and his patience were directed somewhere else.

“You've got Chilton's number saved under Doctor Mad-eye?” he questioned Freddie with a stunned raise of both his eyebrows, and watched her blue eyes shift nervously to her nails. On the porch in his mind he scribbled down the number on his notepad, as well as the living and e-mail address, which had instantly betrayed the identity of Frederick Chilton: Dr.ChiltonF@Bluebottle.com

“Alright,” Freddie bit defeatedly, as nails dug into her armrests. “You got the address.” Light freckles were starting to show under her foundation. “So let me go.” Eyes big, neck reaching. Another plea inside a command. “Let me walk away and you will never hear from me again.”

He had no patience for it, not anymore, and the clock told him his hour was nearly up. The lunch date would soon be over. He looked at Freddie, and pressed his lips together in a rueful smile. “Oh, I would hear plenty about you, Freddie.” He told her. “I would read about the day they'd put you in one of those orange jumpsuits in the newspapers,” Just the shade to clash unforgivingly with her hair. “Or about your pathetic attempts to go into hiding. Flee the country.”

Her jaw shut, her lips pursed, and she blinked rapidly around her stubborn, hard eyes. Will looked at her, and saw the same woman he had seen the very first time their paths had crossed. He had changed, beyond recognition. Freddie remained the same. Freddie would always remain the same.

“You have ruined so many, many lives Freddie,” he told her. “The least you could do, is die.” She tightened with fear, as her hazy eyes glued to his forehead. Behind him, Bryan's saliva caught in his throat.

He took one step towards her, and bent forward enough to bring his mouth in line with her bloodied ear. “You will burn,” he told her. “Like a full tick, plucked from the back of a sick stray.”

Her throat quivered beneath pure skin.

“You were supposed to burn all along, remember?” he recalled. If he had known what he knew now, she would have been in that wheelchair, rolling down the hill. It would have been her meat that he'd presented Hannibal. If he had known what he knew now, and if he had stopped himself from being so terrified of his own nature, he would have left with the Alpha and Abigail, shorty after. 

“Hannibal would tell you you've been living on borrowed time,” he said, and smiled tightly around his lips. Like Alana, Freddie had been on a countdown. One he had never quite forgotten. If someone needed to die, by his hands, he wanted it to be her. He loved for it to be her.

“We have all been waiting for your suicide, Freddie,” he told her, and showed the fangs beneath his lips. “You finally had the guts to commit it that day you called me on the phone.”

Her eyes were venomous, but her words were gone, and Will wasted no time walking to Bryan's chair, and pushing the restless, panting man beside her. “Stop. Stop this. What are you doing? I didn't do anything to...” the man's rambles began again, as Freddie watched him from beneath the strands of her sticky hair.

“You don't have to do this,” Bryan cried, openly sobbing when Will picked up the gun, and tossed the cellphone back in Freddie's open purse.

“Ask Freddie,” he answered the man, as he walked back to the door frame. “She's known all along.”

Two pairs of eyes stared at him as he aimed. Aimed for the blue bottle on Freddie's desk.

“It's in my nature.”

_Click._

_**Boom** ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you soooo much for the support, sweet Fannibal family <3 I love you, and I say that with a whole hearted tongue-roll! You are my sunshine in cloudy weather!
> 
> This chapter was a bit on the heavy side, and I hope it didn't upset anyone, but you guys watch the tv show so this is probably a slice of cream cake compared to a Hannibal 6-course dinner! :-P
> 
> Damnit, now I want cake


	55. Chapter 55

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I've been living inside the ballroom in my mind,” Hannibal breathed, before taking one of Will's legs and lifting it by the ankle with a gentle hand. Kissing the skin of his calf with eyes closed, worshipping, as his mouth searched for nearness, intimacy. 
> 
> “I've been dancing there with you, between the intervals of our meetings.”

He had changed his clothes and showered in the back room of the deli, where he had stacked his jacket, gloves, shoes and jeans in a garbage bag before placing the gun, now back inside the box, on top of the pile. He had left everything with clerk, who didn't ask him any questions nor seem to speak a word of English, but smiled friendly at him as he ushered him to the back room, past cracked, unseeing security cameras. 

Louis had given him these instructions by mail: _keep any trace of evidence out of your own apartment and off your person._ The clerk was an old acquaintance of the attorney, it seemed. 

Will had put on his spare, brand new clothes in the store's empty bathroom, walked outside in the early afternoon sun, and walked, walked, as fast as he could without attracting attention, all the way across the park.

**

He was flat on his back with his legs tightly wrapped around his Alpha's waist, as their naked bodies rutted together with a deep, firm and maddening craving. “ _Hannibal._ ” His mate's large, hard, dripping cock dragged along the length of Will's swollen erection and the inside of his thigh with every roll of their hips, and every stroke was enough to bring the Omega to a shuddering, steep and sharp edge that scratched deep in his belly.

“Did she burn?” Hannibal panted, as one hands slid over Will's sternum and rubbed a peaked, pink nipple between his fingers. Will gasped, arching up as he felt his body leaking obscenely down both their gleaming thighs. “Y-yes,” he stuttered a whimper before lifting his hips and rolling up until his ass came off the mattress, where the head of his cock smeared his own wet pre-cum along the soft hair of Hannibal's belly.

“Your witch at the stake,” Hannibal praised him with deep tremors lacing his purring voice, as he panted hotly against Will's throat. Mad with hunger and pride. Hopeful to the point of insanity. “What did it feel like?”

Both voices shook in broken waves when Will pushed up his body to meet the tip of Hannibal's cock with his slick entrance. Showing both his impatience and his willingness to play. “Retroactively glorious,” he grunted against his mate, when Hannibal's hands cupped his ass and tilted his hips to position him, open him, bring him up against the large head of his cock. 

“How you've relished in your fury,” Hannibal groaned against a lifted thigh, as he took Will's clinging hands off his back, laced their gripping fingers and brought them up over the squirming Omega's head. A kiss followed, deep and warm, and hopelessly weakening.

“I saw her exactly for what she was,” Will breathed hard between clenched teeth, and felt his lashes flutter when Hannibal's chest rubbed along his, sparking pleasure from his peaking, pink nipples. Ocean eyes were nearly black when they met Hannibal's; honey and blood, gold and wine. 

“I recognized her frivolousness,” Will grunted, baring his teeth against Hannibal's chin. “And I recognized her skill.” Strong fingers brushed over his slick hole, and Will's voice cracked with a deep moan that took his breath, as his body clenched against the circling touch. 

“Regret?” Hannibal asked him, the word a deep grunt from his nose as his lion eyes fogged over. A tip of the Alpha's index finger pushed past the ring of muscles, and Will's hips spasmed as he clenched around the intrusion. His thighs buckled against Hannibal's sides, and his toes curled in the air.

“Regret I couldn't make it more personal,” he growled, and arched when the finger slid all the way into the tight heat of his pulsing, rolling body. “Regret I couldn't put my hands in her blood.” 

Another finger probed against his entrance, and Will spread his trembling thighs wide against the grunting, rocking Alpha. His mouth searched with open lips against his mate's ear as he brought his arms back down to cling at Hannibal's back with nails digging into flesh. He knew the blood that welled up and stained the air and flesh would only drive them further into a state of wild, feral frenzy, and he welcomed the beasts in their nature to fuel their savage desires.

His teeth nipped at his mate's earlobe as he groaned against his mate's skin. “I would have, would it not make her death so easily traced back to me.”

A dangerous rumble burst from Hannibal's chest and vibrated right into Will's bones, as demanding lips crashed against his own and pressed the air from his lungs. Hannibal's breaths were hot and loud against his mouth, as he pried his lips open with a dominant tongue, and tasted deeply along his Omega's row of sharp teeth.

_Fuck._ Will could feel himself surrender with an endless, helpless, destructive need for his mate, and knew Hannibal wasn't any more powerful, above him. He crashed just as hard, right against him, as the second finger slid all the way beside the first, and started pumping and crooking inside his willing, hungry body.

They moaned in unison, as Will pushed up to meet his thrusts. “Let me make love to you,” Hannibal broke against his lips, and the Omega's eyes rolled inside his sockets at the warm words that filled his mouth. Arms clawed at his mate, again, but this time with the intention to hold him as close as he could go.

“Please, yes,” he sobbed against his mate's trembling temple. “I feel like I'm fading, without you near me.”

He arched when a pulling pleasure ripped through him, when Hannibal's fingers tapped against his prostate. In the haze of pleasure and need, he remembered:

“ _Do you feel alive, Will?_ ”

“ _I feel like I'm fading._ ”

He had always been fading, blurring, without him. He had known, before, that he was incomplete. He understood it, now.

“Close your eyes,” Hannibal told him, and Will inhaled, smiled, nodding into the darkness as his hands came to frame the Alpha's face, and he plunged into the shared darkness.

**

The room around them, the bed beneath him, it was all antique blue, wood, paintings, luxury. The sheets, the size, the stunning design...

It was a room he'd never been before, but Will knew without a moment's hesitation, that this bedroom was Hannibal's. The bed, was Hannibal's.

And the Alpha was there with him, on top of him, covering him with his chest and raining lips on every inch of his face and neck as their naked bodies collided and rocked, slid and searched impatiently for more to connect.

He arched on the expensive cotton sheets, and pushed around the two fingers that were exploring the inside of his body with a demanding, unforgiving pace. “D-don't s-stop,” he pleaded, shaking hard in the Alpha's arms when fingertips scraped over the little pink nub that was his swelling prostate. 

Euphoria. The large mattress, the luxurious sheets, his skin didn't feel them as real. But Hannibal was here. His body, his taste and scent, his voice and touch... he was here. He _was_ real.

“I've wanted this so much,” he sobbed almost brokenly as Hannibal yanked his hips closer to his pelvis, and spread his fingers inside Will's body, testing him for room. Will wailed at the stretch, and threw his head back into the pillow. “I've been losing my mind since I walked out,” he wheezed when Hannibal growled in his ear, and slipped his soaked, slippery fingers from Will's gripping body. 

Their eyes met, as Hannibal pulled back, up, and wrapped those slick fingers around Will's proudly begging erection. “As have I, mio caro.” He rasped a sigh, and the Omega drowned in the antique gold that shone down on him, in him, until he felt it pool around his face, his ears, up his nose and down his throat like a liquid. “After Florence, it became unbearable,” he shuddered the confession, before glancing helplessly down his body where Hannibal was slowly spreading slick around the head of his own, swollen, ready cock, with the fingers that had left his body, empty.

“I've been living inside the ballroom in my mind,” Hannibal breathed, before taking one of Will's legs and lifting it by the ankle with a gentle hand. Kissing the skin of his calf with eyes closed, worshipping, as his mouth searched for nearness, intimacy. 

“I've been dancing there with you, between the intervals of our meetings.”

Lips were on the back of Will's knee, and he moaned with hopeless abandon as he watched Hannibal love him, cherish him, with eyes that shimmered bright with moisture between the heavy lids. He whined, and reached for the Alpha with open hands, clawing, pawing at the air between them, as Hannibal dipped his head to kiss his naked thighs.

Lips on the length of his shaft, the head of his cock, down his balls and tasting the slick of his hole. Not to bring him release, nor to edge him closer to orgasm, but for the Alpha to experience him, enjoy him, explore him with all senses like a very fine champagne.

They had danced, in an empty ballroom made of gold and marble. With a chandelier that hung heavily above the circled and polished hard-wooden floor. Tall windows that allowed the early sun to illuminate their faces, as they danced to the tunes of an invisible orchestra. Both of them dressed in suits, colored like the white sand from tropical beaches. Both of them with skin kissed by the sun, and eyes that sparkled with life, health, love and bliss.

Hannibal hadn't told him any of this, but inside their shared minds, Will could see the vision before his eyes like a daydream. They had danced in Hannibal's mind, every time the Alpha had closed his eyes.

He spread his legs wider when Hannibal moved between them with his back straight, and wrapped them around his Alpha's back when he positioned himself against Will's glistering, fluttering entrance. He moaned his agreement when he felt his mate nudging against him with his slick, ready cock, and blinked heavily at his flushed, beautiful, silver wolf. They weren't going to tease. This was about so much more than human fulfillment. So far beyond animal instinct. 

It was about bringing the shattered pieces of a soul together, so it could mend back into completion.

It was about taking a deep breath of air into your lungs, after almost being swallowed up by the waves of the ocean.

“Yess,” he hissed, as he reached a hand to try and touch Hannibal's naked body before him. There was so much time to play, after. Now, all Will wanted to feel was the tears in all the layers of his being, mending, smoothing, polishing into perfect.

Heal me. Purify me from the world's pollution. 

Make me whole.

Hannibal watched him like the proud lion. Strong, solid, with power freely flowing from every pore of his glowing skin. Surrounded by dark blues, he was the shimmering sun through the heavy clouds, filled with rain. 

Both forecasts belonging to him, in a similar breath.

“Let me have you,” Will whispered, as his fingertips stroked against the soft hair on Hannibal's stomach. His whole body quivered beneath the gaze of the mighty creature that was the Alpha, but his touch felt the same tremor running deep beneath his mate's skin. 

The same surrender.

Hannibal glistened wetly in the warm light, and air stuttered in his lungs before the Alpha looked down their bodies, as pushed the head of his large, wet, swollen cock against Will's leaking entrance, coating it further with the Omega's running slick.

“Have me,” Will broke, as his shaking hands roamed over the Alpha's rumbling chest. The whine that escaped the Alpha's throat was high, desperate, and beautiful in its nakedness, before Hannibal spread both hands on Will's pale thighs, and started to push inside his arching mate's body.

“Ohh. Oh God.” The slide was slow, and almost cruel in the way Hannibal made his body part to allow him inside. Will felt the hot, hard flesh impale him and curved his hips up to allow him in as far as he would go, as he eyes rolled behind twitching eyelids, and his spine curved off the bed. Blinded by the burning, strangling pleasure, he reached out for his Alpha, until Hannibal took his fingers and placed deep, panting kisses to his knuckles. 

Will's thighs were spread until his knees hovered only inches above the mattress, and he cried out from deep in his throat when the Alpha grabbed his ankles, and brought them up to rest against his shoulders.

“All of you,” Hannibal promised hoarsely, having found his human vocabulary amongst the primal grunting, and Will's eyes opened to see his mate nip adoringly at his calves and feet with lips and teeth and pants of breath. To make good on that promise, his hips pushed further, through the barrier of tight muscles, and both men cried when a quick push caused their bodies to connect fully, completely, until there was no more room to give.

“Fuck, Christ, OH.”

Will felt full. So full. His body burned and his loins throbbed and he was so, so completely whole. He stared at Hannibal, eyes wide and startled with the sudden, pushing fit of their bodies, and saw liquid eyes stare back at him with the same, gasping astonishment.

They had done this, many times already, yet everything about it remained completely overwhelming. The way they fit, and how their bodies embraced with such recognition, long lost lovers, before their brains had even found the neurological sensation of the touch.

The room was filled with only ragged breaths and broken moans, as Hannibal reached to slide his hands over Will's belly, and started thrusting with gentle rolls of his hips to bring them both in a trance of hot, slow pleasure, and deeply rooted warmth. 

Love.

“Will.”

Will felt Hannibal push inside him, slide back out, with slow, maddening strokes as he looked up at the Alpha and saw honey eyes glazed, temples wet, lips open, quivering, alive, with every nerve open and every heartbeat celebrating.

Little sounds escaped him when Hannibal pushed his hips inwards with more determination, and Will felt Hannibal's cock stretching him deep, far and wide, as his body floated on the brink of burning pleasure and too much, too hot, too sensitive.

But despite his state of lost, hooded eyes, flushed ears and parted lips, he never once stopped watching his glorious mate, his golden Alpha, looking at him through his own, broken eyes. Cracked, to where the vulnerability, the love could flow like tears, and push over his bottom lashes.

“Tell me,” he croaked, as Hannibal brushed his hands along his pink, flushed nipples. “Tell me what it does to you.” 

Hannibal's fingers trembled, as the stroked down over Will's ribs, and came to hold him at his waist. Pupils wide and black, and one fang biting down on his bottom lip as he fucked steadily into the Omega's clutching, flushing pink body. 

“Tell me what it does to know I have killed for us,” Will pushed out, as he arched his hips higher to take everything the Alpha would give him. “And that I enjoyed it.” His eyes were fire, bright, and with the last word on his tongue, he watched Hannibal's control break.

Hannibal looked at him, and gold disappeared completely beneath the black before they rolled into his head with a wounded howl, before his hands shot out to reach for his Omega with forceful strength.

“Fuck.” Will's legs were bundled, shoved to his right, and his body rolled on his side before he could take his face up from the sheets he was pushed against. Hannibal was behind him, grabbing, spooning, mounting, as he brought one of the Omega's legs up with a rough hand on the back of his knee.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Their damp skin collided as Hannibal tightened one arm around Will's chest, and growled wildly into his mate's ear as he covered the back of the Omega's body entirely with his, and set a strong, sharp pace to fuck into his mate's dripping, stretched hole.

Will wailed, clawed at the sheets and buried his cry against blue, expensive cotton as Hannibal held him, took him, cradled and bred him with a brutal, claiming pace. Overpowering and sheltering, as their bones pressed close enough to collide and support their heated flesh, moving as one, feral creature. 

That breathed and cried and shook as one.

Hannibal's thick cock stretched him as far as he could go, and the slick, wet, burning slide of his deep shaft pumped in and out, dragging along his sparking prostate as if statically charged and igniting a pleasure sharp as fingernails.

Teeth scraped his neck, and Will held on tightly to the sheets as he turned back his head with wild eyes, searching for his mate with open lips. And he was kissed. He was granted his desires, always, by his growling, feral mate, who pushed his arm under Will's leg to keep him up, open, as his hands wrapped around Will's flushed, wet cock to pump him to the rhythm of sharp, toe curling thrusts. 

“My Will,” Will could hear the Alpha's lost voice against the back of his curls, and shook hard inside their tight embrace as his lashes fluttered like butterfly wings against his cheek. “Hannibal,” he moaned in the same instant, and arched his back until his flushed cheeks aligned with the Alpha's sharp cheekbone.

Large fingers carted through his hair to keep him in place, as the Alpha's other hand pushed one of Will's legs forward to spread him open wide. Then, the warm grip of those strong fingers curled back around Will's cock, trapped snug between his soaked thighs.

“Please,” Will whined like a cornered animal, as he reached his own hands down to clench at the Alpha's grip. His choked words were shivers against the cotton blue. “I won't last.”

His body was on fire. The gentle grip of large fingers around his cock as Hannibal's was hammering its bulgeous head over Will's prostate was positively lethal. There was no stopping it. The words had barely left his lips and he was overflowing, spurting hot seed over Hannibal's hand as he squeezed the Alpha's cock with the tight contractions of his ass. 

Will's entire body shook as his eyes turned blind and his muscles tensed hard around a ball of hot, aching pleasure that took his limbs and pinned him down. He screamed soundlessly into the sheets, buckling back against his Alpha, who rolled the palm of his hand over the spurting, leaking head of his cock.

Sticky slick pooled around Hannibal's belly and thighs, and the Alpha groaned abandonedly into his spasming mate's neck, in hot, eager agreement with Will's pleasure.

“Oh, it will last, lamb,” Hannibal bit against his neck, as he continued to urge Will's body back around him. One hand pushed Will's shoulder down into the mattress, and he continued to gasp through the waves of his orgasm against the bed, as his body was covered completely now by Hannibal's larger, broader shape. 

One dominant hand found its way into his curls, keeping his head down as Hannibal took him, fucked him, pushed into him with wild, rough strokes that had Will crying real tears of oversensitive, ecstatic pleasure. “Fuck, H-Hannibal.”

Teeth were in his neck and a growl rumbled in his ear. Animal. Feral. Savage.

“F-f-fuck.” His oversensitive, pink cock was rubbing bare against the sheets, as were his swollen, stiff nipples, and Will's hands clenched hard into the bedding as his mate rode him, plundered him, with hot groans from his nostrils and clawing hands at Will's arms and back.

It was beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful instinct.

“Y-y-ess.” Will curled his spine and pushed out his ass to receive his mate with as much strength, force and speed as his body could endure, as fireworks exploded inside his mind and traveled down every vein and every cell. Pushing both sense and thought down to his knees to make room for endless flames on his nerves. 

Thigh-trembling, neck-arching ecstasy.

His toes curled against the bed, as Hannibal took him with the spirit of his beast. Dominating his submissive Omega. It was a beautiful game, and like this, under the Alpha, taken, down and controlled, Will was completely accepting, wanting, blissful in his surrender.

But like that dance in Hannibal's ballroom, Will wanted more than simply being led. 

He wanted just as much to lead. 

He enjoyed the endless power play between them. He enjoyed the endless shift in balance, as they played, and pushed and took. Both of them did, had, since the very beginning.

The wolf in him was vibrant and bright behind his eyes, and Will felt his strength surging to his body the moment the beast in him started growling from the back of his throat. He wanted to play. He had wanted to play since the office.

“Ah-h.” He felt Hannibal's chest stiffen against him as he pushed out his spine and threw his shoulders back with a sharp push of his muscles, before the he flung himself back against his Alpha's body. Hard, unexpected and demanding, until he struggled both of them backwards in a rolling flip.

Hannibal on his back, Will on top, facing the ceiling.

Hannibal grunted, growled, and then mewled when Will fell back against his body, and pushed his hips down to slide the Alpha deeply back inside his body. His mate's chest rumbled loudly with an instant purr, as Will used his feet and worked his thighs to push himself up and down his mate's madly pulsing cock, demanding a pace of slow and hard, as he could feel Hannibal's muscles trembling beneath his back, his legs, his ass.

The Alpha sighed with such helpless content that it made Will eyes water when strong arms came to fold around his ribs, holding him close.

“Cuore mio,” Hannibal nearly broke against him. “Amore mio.”

The Alpha's hand stroked the working thighs and belly of his Omega mate, before his fingers found their way back to Will's cock, fully hard yet again and arching against his belly. “Please. P-please...” He was so weak. They were so, so weak, together. And yet, stronger than any force could be, after colliding deeply as bone. 

Will rolled his body like crashing waves in stormy water, as his body squeezed Hannibal with a tight, angry grip. He felt liquid, he felt powerful, and behind the fluttering muscles of his stomach, he felt a warning, scratching heat spread out through his thighs, loins and pulling tightly at his balls, his painfully red cock and all along the walls of his insides. 

He felt the thick girth of Hannibal's cock and was taken by a hollow regret, that the Alpha couldn't grow out his knot and stretch him, trap him, until the early sunrise of tomorrow morning. 

Not outside his heat.

He wondered, in that moment, if that would change within a bond.

“W-Will,” Hannibal choked breathlessly, as he held his Omega with strong arms, as if fearing he might disappear would he let him go. Will nodded, cheek to the Alpha's cheek, as his eyes squeezed tight. He felt it too. His Alpha was very, very close.

He understood Hannibal's body better than ever. He knew the twitch of fingers against his flesh, the forceful, quiet breaths, and the way his hips pumped into him with surrender rather than rhythm. The Alpha met his thrusts, quickened the pace and held him tightly with both arms around his torso.

The idea of his mate restraining him, using his body and taking his pleasure, was enough for Will to moan obscenely into the room as his body went slack in his Alpha's trembling embrace.

“Ahh,” Hannibal released a helpless, stuttered whimper into Will's ear as the Omega squeezed around him, and it was everything Will needed to pump out another stream of hot semen over Hannibal's enfolding hand. His second orgasm was helpless, wrecking, as it broke through him like a near-painful, pulling eruption of burning hot release that flooded Hannibal's cock with running slick and made Will's teeth ache inside his gums. His fingers arched like claws, and his toes curled under his feet and everything, everything, everything was glorious.

And Hannibal was right there with him, pushing deeply inside until hip bones bumped against Will's ass, quivering and squeezing and milking the Alpha until his mate shuddered, groaned like a wild tiger and spilled his seed from his thick, pulsing cock to deep and far into Will's tight, slick body.

Will's eyes rolled back so far inside his head he saw stars as Hannibal held on to him and stuttered his hips, riding out all of his pleasure as he pressed his face hard into Will's neck and whispered suffocated words of love into his Omega's skin like an endless chain of soundless prayer.

“Ti amo, ti amo, ti amo, ti amo...”

It took a long time for their bodies to unclench and go slack against the other as Will felt his eyes spill little drops of tears in the corners of his eyes. Tears of intensity, and tears of love. He felt exhaustion in every muscle and every bone, but in his mind, he was vibrantly alive.

“Mmmmm,” Hannibal groaned when Will's shaking tights lifted enough to slip off the Alpha's cock. The Omega stretched out like a cat before he rolled against his Alpha's naked, warm skin to dig himself a nice spot along the length of his body, with his chin in the hollow of his mate's collarbone. Sheets covered his torso, and his eyes shut with a content sigh passing his lips.

He could die here, like this. Better yet, he could stay forever. 

Hannibal wrapped an arm around him as Will listened to his mate's calming heartbeat, coming down from a most elevated high. There was a deep purr rumbling from the Alpha's chest, and it wasn't before long that Will realized the same steady sound was rising from within himself.

Hannibal's hands stroked along his ribs, and his lips found their way into his hair. “Pleased to finally find you here,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion and heaven. Will looked up Hannibal's collarbone, to see the Alpha's chin, nose, and cheekbones. 

It took him a weary second to understand his mate was not referring to the placement against his body, but the room in which they were currently curled up together.

“I think I can guess where here is,” he replied as he snuggled back into Hannibal's neck, and smiled lips wide against the soft, warm skin that surrounded him with their mingled scents of autumn winter, fire and decay. “Or, _was_ ,” the Omega corrected himself, as his fingers slid into the Alpha's chest hair, and twirled it loosely around his fingers.

“Welcome to my home,” Hannibal hummed into his hair, as his lips stroked patterns against the skin on his skull. Will's eyes traveled along the walls, as far as he could see without moving a muscle away from the Alpha. Blue wallpaper, classic, thick and somber, with furniture that was both modern and classic. It was Hannibal, in every trace.

“This was your bedroom in Baltimore,” he said, before yawning wide, open lips against Hannibal's throat. His fingers combed through the thick hair on his mate's chest, before his hand slipped down to rub lazy circles against the swell of his belly. 

“And inside my mind,” Hannibal told him, purring heavily under the caressing hand of his mate as his own fingers began to stroke up and down the curve of Will's spine. “I always wished to have you here.”

Will scoffed at the confession, as he thought back at the time Hannibal had been living in this house. Having Will in his bed couldn't possibly have been his sole mission, back then, which was evident by everything that had happened between them.

“I dreamed of having you in this bed, many times,” Hannibal sighed, as he stretched out his limbs and pulled at one of Will's curls with gentle teeth, breathing warmly into his mate's hair.

Will smirked, as he licked his lips at he way Hannibal's muscles trembled with excitement against his cheek, and knew the Alpha was picturing them together, like this, before Jack Crawford had ever gotten a hold of Will. 

Before it became complicated.

“Did you touch yourself, back then, while thinking of me?” the Omega asked him playfully, voice laced with poorly hidden eagerness, and Hannibal chuckled against his ear until Will's head shook with the vibration. “Since we met, exclusively,” he answered him with a mischievous honesty that made Will huff a laugh into the hollow his Hannibal's throat.

He believed him.

What was between them hadn't been sexual, in those days. And yet, in a way, it always had.

“Despite everything, I must admit a part of me _wanted_ you to have me here.” The confession was a stream of air that made his own skin break out in goosebumps. He hadn't dared to say it, or feel, or understand it before. But even then, even after knowing who he was, Will had always found the way they talked, and touched, connected... something undeniably sensual. Sexual, even when he hadn't wanted to know it. 

He had repressed it as hard as he had his desire for blood on his hands.

“Instead of...?” Hannibal teased him lightly as he squeezed the Omega's shoulder with a firm hand. Letting him know he was here, paying close attention to every word, despite the dreamy melody of his sleepy voice.

Will bit his lip and smirked. Implication was never lost on his mate. “Yes, I was jealous,” he mumbled, as his fingers hooked punishingly in his mate's chest hair. “Even then.”

He knew it now, but he hadn't understood to the fullest why he hadn't been able to sleep, knowing Alana was in the Alpha's bed. He had feared for her safety, certainly. But the bitter gnawing hadn't stopped there.

“Of whom?” Hannibal asked, and this time, it was Will's turn to chuckle. 

“Everyone who got to be a part of it.” 

Hannibal kissed his head, as fingers stroked past his temple and cheek. “If you would have had me, my bed would have always been yours,” he murmured gently, and Will felt his own, rumbling purr sooth through them as he closed his eyes.

“It is now,” he said, as another yawn pulled at the words.

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed, but he sounded far, far away as the world blurred, and the Alpha's stroking fingers slowly went slack against his skin. “Sleep,” he told the Omega, but before the word was out, Will had already drifted off into dreams of days where this bedroom could have been theirs. 

...before ever meeting Garret Jacob Hobbs.

**

It was dark when he woke. 

He was still in the bedroom, rather than the prison, and they were still entangled on the large, king size bed. Hannibal mumbled something under his breath when Will lifted his head, but didn't wake when the Omega rolled from his torso at the sight of a light coming from the doorway.

A little, fire warm light, peeking from the cracks of the door.

He blinked once, twice, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, and placed his bare feet on the floor. In the same instant, his chest was covered with a plain, white shirt, as blue boxers folded around his thighs.

He stood up.

That little light called to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about not replying to reviews lately, my lovelies. I appreciate them all so much and I read all of them and smile and cry and say stuff like; 'Mmmm, interesting.' I just can't keep up with things anymore, because I've been in and out of the hospital, still in a wheelchair, and nobody seems to know what is wrong with me and how to fix it. I am doing a bit better, but being bed/chair bound with two toddlers running around is hard work, so please, forgive me! And please, don't forget about me!
> 
> I love you all so much! Hope you enjoy this smutty chapter! ^.^<3<3<3


	56. Chapter 56

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold looked wooden, surrounded by the cold that radiated from the corpse on the floor. “Is this what stands between us, Will?” the Alpha asked him, throat tight and gaze unsteady. He looked unimposing, in that moment. Walled. Almost like he had looked when Will had found him in the kitchen, covered in blood, before he had driven home the curved blade of the knife.

He followed the light out of the bedroom, into the dark, deserted hall. There, he could see it radiating from below the stairs, where the golden flame flickered like a true fire.

Bare feet against warm, carpeted steps, he shuffled his way down to the hallway, and into the dining room. The light was brighter there, and he could clearly see the familiar surroundings; the cleared table, the drape-covered windows, the dark, empty fireplace.

The light came from further down still, peeking from a cracked door that led to the basement.

Will paused, hesitated, as he stood in the absolute silence of the mind-made house. He had been there before, in their shared memories. He had been there with Hannibal. Never alone.

The light flickered, and the movement startled him out of his doubt. He wanted to know what was beckoning him, down in the stone, windowless chamber.

The steps were cold under his bare feet, this time, and the sound of his skin against the flat bricks echoed against the dark walls.

As he moved further, the light stuttered like a candle on a drafty corner, and as he stepped onto the basement floor, he could see the bright shimmer coming from a large, round chandelier at the ceiling. Candles were lit inside the circle, and Will wondered if the chandelier had truly been there, in Hannibal's house in Baltimore, or if he just imagined it would be. If his own mind, his own expectations, flooded and muddled the truth of Hannibal's memories.

He saw her when he turned, and looked down the length of the basement behind him. She was there, in the candlelight, posed, and still. All of her was here, in rows of thinning slices.

Beverly, enveloped in glass, every bit of her exposed. Every layer, revealed. Not a punishment, but a reflection of what she had been trying to do to _him_. To the Chesapeake ripper.

His breath hitched, stuck in his throat and froze in his lungs, just like the very first time he had seen her like this. 

He walked past the rows of her neatly exhibited body, and watched as blood pooled on the floor beneath the glass. There hadn't been blood when he had seen her in the observatory. Her body had been drained, frozen and sawed with such beautiful precision. But now, it leaked from between the pressing glass, onto the stone floor, over his feet.

“I found her here,” Hannibal's voice suddenly croaked from behind him, and Will's lost state jolted awake at the sound. He turned and watched his Alpha standing behind him in pajama bottoms and messy, silver hair. 

They locked eyes, as Will swallowed around his dry throat. The blood around his feet felt sticky, and cold. “She was looking for evidence,” he said, as Will turned himself fully towards his mate, and felt his feet leaving prints on the stone beneath, as the sticky blood pulled between the floor and his skin.

“She was trying to help me,” he said, as a trembling hand stroked across a slice of glass. “Because she believed me.” Beverly had looked at him from across that table, had touched his shackled hands, and had listened when he told her what he knew about Hannibal. She had given him an opening, a benefit of her doubt, and she had taken the time to look at the trusted Doctor with the eyes of an agent. She had seen the cracks, because she chose to. She had made sure he wasn't alone.

She had believed him.

But it had all gone too far. He had searched for someone to stand beside him, when she had stepped beyond him. She had taken it into FBI territory; a place where the Ripper had already made a home and recognized the scents. She had wanted to catch the monster Will knew she could never outsmart. 

“Can you forgive me, for her?” Hannibal asked, his voice soft, timid, fragile in the distortion of his vocal cords. Will looked at him, and saw the same wavering in those amber eyes.

“I can,” he answered him, without a moment's hesitation. There was nothing to forgive. He couldn't bear the thought of the Alpha suffering over something that just wasn't there. Amber lit around deep, black pupils, and Will licked his lips before he sighed with a sharp sting of deep, deep regret.

“I can't forgive _me_ , for her,” he said, as his eyes brushed along the cold, dead face of Beverly Katz. She was gone, not because of Hannibal, but because he dragged her into the lion's den. Knowing the lion wouldn't spare them. Knowing the lion would spare only him instead.

Beverly had broken into Hannibal's house, and had found his secrets in the basement and the fridge. Hannibal had no other choice, then, than to end her life in protection of his own. Will could not blame him.

Will understood the rules of survival. 

“You told her not to go,” Hannibal said, and Will's eyes flashed back to the Alpha, who looked smaller, with his shoulders low, and his bare feet peeking out from under his bottoms. Will looked at him, eyes soft, grieving, and he felt a deep wave of tenderness towards his mate. 

He hadn't wanted this. He hadn't planned it. He had done what was needed, and taken the opportunity to show Will what he was putting at stake. No one was safe inside the circle that contained the both of them. No one else could be involved in the game.

The idea of Beverly having caught Hannibal – reporting, arresting, imprisoning him... the thought alone was now enough to squeeze his windpipe until his eyes watered. She came for him, and so she couldn't live.

“I just wish she hadn't gone,” he breathed, the scent of copper tangible on his tongue, before his sticky feet stepped closer to the Alpha, who met him on the blood-soaked floor, and folded his arms tightly around Will's smaller frame. 

“As do I,” he told him, as Will closed his eyes and inhaled deeply against Hannibal's bare skin. He shouldn't have pointed at Hannibal. He shouldn't have reached out for help. He could have known... should have known what it would lead to.

He shuddered a breath into Hannibal's neck. But he had been so alone. He had tried, with everyone, and she had been the only one to bite. Her curiosity, kindness and ambition had been her end.

Not unlike Miriam Lass.

When he released the Alpha and pulled back his chin from his mate's collarbone, the fiery light of the candles was gone. They were surrounded by darkness instead, and the room was once again made from smooth stone, steel and glass. Hannibal's memories had collided with his own, and when he looked down at his feet, the blood had vanished from the floor and his skin.

Beverly was gone.

“Would things have ended differently, had you not pointed her in my direction?” Hannibal asked him, and Will inhaled, before he pressed the palm of his hand to his nose. “Would she not have seen the patterns, like you did, had she been given the time?”

Will breathed into his own skin, as his eyes slid back over his Alpha's bare chest, along the line of his throat, and up to his glowing, reaching eyes.

Perhaps.

Perhaps he was as guilty of Beverly's death, as Jack Crawford was of Miriam Lass'. Responsible, rather than accessory. 

A new light flared, and Will lifted his head to see the same flicker of flames coming from the top of the stairs.

Hannibal followed his gaze, and Will watched his Alpha's eyes darken with blood and pain that the Omega couldn't place, before he stepped aside, gesturing for him to lead the way, up, up the stairs.

Will watched his mate, and saw the way Hannibal avoided his eyes as he hid behind the loose strands on his forehead. They stood there in strange, eerie silence, before Will finally walked past the Alpha and stepped onto the stairs. The light flickered brightly from the doorway, and with a hand on the baluster, he climbed up.

There seemed more steps now, than there had been on his descent. But he climbed and climbed, leaving Hannibal behind in the darkness of the basement, until he reached the top.

Stepping out into the kitchen, more blood washed along his feet, and this time, it was enough to soak his toes. The kitchen lights were replaced with the same burning candles from before, and on the floor, against the wall, was the cold, dead body of Abigail Hobbs.

**

He sat down on the kitchen floor with his back against the wall, just like the day Alana found him here. Abigail had been with him then, shaped and colored alive by his mind and memories. Now, in this haunting scene of their shared minds, she was with him in the shape of a bleeding corpse. Eyes of glass, skin like ice.

She was beside him, on her back, drenched in her own blood that just wouldn't dry. It was on his feet, on his calves, and his fingers as he sat there, unmoving, and watched the shell of who she had once been, staring up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. She looked small, frightened, even in death.

It took a while for Hannibal to come up, and walk into the kitchen. The Alpha had known what Will would find here. Will had seen the apprehension in his eyes.

He heard Hannibal's bare feet sticking against the floor as he walked, and saw the pale toes coming into his line of vision. The Alpha's feet parted the pool of blood, leaving prints after his footsteps. 

Hannibal stopped before him, and leaned against the counter.

Silence. Nothing but the drip of blood that still trickled lazily from the wide cut on Abigail's throat. Will didn't look at his mate, but kept his eyes on his own stained feet, and remembered how gentle hands had lowered him to the floor, as the coppery taste of his own blood had filled his mouth. He remembered Hannibal's stinging words in his ringing ears.

“You can make it all go away. Put your head back. Close your eyes. Wade into the quiet of the stream.”

Words filled with empathetic vengeance, while his stomach spilled over the kitchen floor.

“She died here,” he said, eyes on his knees and voice a soft tremble in the silence. It had taken him until the chapel to understand the reality of her being gone. But he had still yet to accept it. 

To accept Hannibal's role in her brutal murder. And his own.

Abigail was gone.

“You killed her,” he whispered, before lifting his eyes to look up at the Alpha, motionless by the counter in nothing but silk, midnight blue pajama bottoms. 

Gold looked wooden, surrounded by the cold that radiated from the corpse on the floor. “Is this what stands between us, Will?” the Alpha asked him, throat tight and gaze unsteady. He looked unimposing, in that moment. Walled. Almost like he had looked when Will had found him in the kitchen, covered in blood, before he had driven home the curved blade of the knife.

“You took her from us,” he swallowed, as his eyes brushed back over her dead skin, the slashed flesh on her throat. He felt the urge to reach out and touch her in the hope to feel warmth, a pulse, or a sign that she wasn't real. That it had always been nothing but a nightmare.

Hannibal's hands gripped the counter, as one toe drew a line on the bloody floor. “You didn't want there to be an 'us',” he said, and Will's jaw tightened when he watched the tension in his mate's physique. 

He wanted nothing more than to stop it, here, and wrap himself around his Alpha. Make this scene, this feeling, this conversation go away.

But he couldn't. Abigail was still there, in his mind. She was still on the kitchen floor. 

“I saved her to be our daughter,” Hannibal told him, his eyes resting hard and lost on Abigail's lifeless form. “And you betrayed us.”

The pain was back, as if it was as fresh as it had been that day. It had been buried, but alive beneath the dirt. Will swallowed, as a trembling breath pushed from his lungs. “So you disposed of her,” he spoke, softly, but around the tension in his jaw. “To punish me.”

The scar on his belly felt like a freshly cut wound, and he clenched it with his hands, watching Hannibal walk along the kitchen counter, as he traced the steel with his fingers. “I did,” he said, as Will stared after the back of his silvery blond head. “With your betrayal, you murdered us all.”

Hannibal walked along the corners of the island, until he came to stand across from Will, on the opposite end of the counter. His profile was somber, his hair weary, falling before his eyes. Just like it had then.

“A part of me died that day,” Hannibal spoke, his eyes on the locked door of the pantry, before he turned eyes dark as dirt on the Omega. “I wanted a part of you to die too.”

Will gasped a breath before he stuttered out a chuckle. His hand, still holding on to his belly, clawed fingers against his shirt. Hannibal's words rang with beautiful honesty. His view of the rights and wrongs in the world, and his solution to bring back the balance.

Will had betrayed him. Hannibal had to punish him, would he allow himself to love him still. The score had to be even. Even Steven.

“The part of me that would choose not to go with you,” he huffed his broken words, and he smiled around his teeth. Their eyes met deep enough to make them both slump in their posture with the weakness that it brought. “My humanity.”

He watched Hannibal lick his lips, frown deep on his forehead as his eyes shone with longing, pain. He didn't speak, and Will sniffed as he gripped his own curls with his hand. “Did you hope it would make me present for you?” he asked, and watched Hannibal's tight lip flash briefly into a rueful smile.

“I did,” he answered, amber eyes shining through the silver locks of hair, and Will huffed again, laughed. He knew his mate had seen their potential. Had seen their destinies intertwined long before Will had ever realized what they were meant to be from the start.

Hannibal had been in agony, impatiently suffering, and waiting for Will to come into his true form, and complete him. Hannibal had suffered in his absence, since the moment they had met. Hannibal had loved him, recognized him, from that very first handshake.

Will's betrayal, after giving him such hope of a life together, had been a brutal, brutal murder in its own right.

His stomach clenched into a painful ball of ice, as his eyes fell back on Abigail beside him. There had been a war of instinct and brains, a game of cat and mouse, but she hadn't been one of the dancing wolves. She had been neither cat nor mouse. She had been an innocent. A victim of her upbringing, and of Hannibal's manipulation.

“You wanted her to be our child,” Will said, as he felt a suffocating grip trap him against the kitchen wall. She could have been family. She could have been living with them, together. They would send her off to college, have family holidays and he would finally take her fishing. Teach her how to use the lure, rather than to be the lure.

He had wanted to make her strong, independent, her own person. 

“I had hoped,” Hannibal admitted, and Will bit teeth into his lower lip. He had hoped. He had loved Abigail, but he had also seen the opportunities to bind her to him. To bind Will to her. Again, she would be the lure, the glue, to bring them all together.

In the end, Abigail hadn't been the snow clean victim he had regarded her as. The guilt he had felt for the death of her father was where his feelings of responsibility had been born, and Hannibal had fed those emotions inside him.

He realized, here and now, that he had tried to speak to his nurturing, Omega nature. He had wanted to bring out the wolf with a cub.

Hannibal took a hesitant step closer, as he rested a hand on the counter. “Adopted children into a pack are often rejected by the animal,” he said, as he squeezed his fingers together in a fist. Regret. “I didn't know what the risks were, at the time.”

He swallowed, and Will watched his throat work before his Alpha turned his eyes towards him with thick grief evident between the lines of his face. “We would have abandoned her,” he told him, his voice raw on his tongue. “It's better this way.”

Will breathed in deeply through his nostrils as he felt his chest tighten with the slow, hollow beating of his heart. “Better off?” he huffed, as his voice quivered around the words. “She could have lived a normal life, without us.”

Wouldn't that have been the best? Not for her to come with them, but to owe up to her mistakes, do the time, the work, the therapy, and climb from the depths of her childhood to live her life as any other young woman would. To be normal.

Like Will had tried, ever since he'd realized he was different.

Life had been hollow, until temptation lured him back to the roots of his being.

Hannibal walked to him, two steps, and came to stand before him. Will looked up at him, and watched his coffee eyes through the silver strands. A hand came to reach out, an offer to pull him from the floor, onto his feet. Away from the corpse, and back beside the Alpha.

Will watched the hand, before he looked at Abigail's lifeless eyes. He had believed to know her. He had believed to help her. But most of their conversations, he had held inside his head. He hadn't talked to Abigail Hobbs, nor had she looked at him with the devotion or adoration he had seen in her eyes when they were fishing in the stream.

He had only spoken to himself. He had only wished for his conscience to be soothed. Cleared. To be assured that the girl was better off with her father dead.

He looked back at Hannibal, before he took the hand, and pushed himself to his knees as he rose to meet his mate, who held on to his hand in his.

“Abigail was deeply programmed to cling to a stronger, dominant individual,” Hannibal said, as he looked at Will. “One with similar traits to her father.”

_'Like you,'_ Will thought, as he looked down at his hands, and clenched his fingers. Abigail would have pushed her way out of a normal life, he knew. She was frightened, and her fear had kept leading her to death. She had lied about what she had done, and she had struggled against offered help. Anyone's, but Hannibal's.

And Freddie Lounds'.

Hannibal reached for his fingers, and clasped them with his own. “She would have found a path, built on her father's bones,” he told him, as Will gasped a breath between them. “Or would have found death searching for one.”

The Omega shook his head, and pulled his fingers from the Alpha's as he took a step back from both Hannibal and Abigail. “She was a product of her upbringing,” he said, his voice high, tight, as he gestured to the dead girl on the floor. “This wasn't her fault.”

Hannibal's features didn't change. His eyes were dark, his body strong, upright, and the muscles soft. Accepting, rather than fighting. “We all are,” he told Will, and smiled a small stretch of lips. “But when we step into the world as adults, we are still judged for our deeds.”

Hannibal didn't take that step to bring them back together, but Will could see him tracing the path with his eyes. “No matter if we cut all our ties and leave behind the horrors of our childhood,” he said instead. “The foundation we are built upon remains, invisible.”

Will sighed from deep within his chest, as he brushed a hand through his hair. “The line between victim and perpetrator is a muddied one,” he admitted timidly, as he rolled his lower lip between his teeth.

Ocean blue met dark amber. “But you used her to win my loyalty.”

Hannibal's stance was straight, but the curve of his shoulders wasn't as strong as it usually was. There was a roundness, and insecurity, a sadness present in his limbs. “Everything that happened since the day we met, was because of you,” he spoke, defeated rather than proud.

“My eyes were only for you, then, and now. Always.”

Will felt a sob push up his throat as he looked at his Alpha and longed for him, longed for him with a weakness that could floor him.

“What you did here, horrified me,” he said, his jaw heavy, cramped around the words. “It still does.”

It always would. This had been the moment Hannibal had gone from a shadowy figure, to a solid man. Here, he had seen him, bright as day. Here, he had known him, for the very first time.

Hannibal's eyes slid to the floor, to his own, bloody footprints, before he met his Omega. “Do you understand it?” he asked, and Will heard the hidden pleading. 'Do you understand me?'

Understand me.

Please, understand me.

“I understand why you made the decisions you made, here,” Will told him, fingers shaking in his fists. He was the only one who could see the Alpha, and behold every way the crystal broke the light. 

“We are different people,” he told Hannibal, warned him. “I will never choose or tread exactly like you do.”

He took a deep breath, looked at the Alpha's eyes, which shone almost black like raven feathers in the candle light of the dark kitchen.

“But there is more than just one muddied line,” he almost huffed, as he took a step closer to his mate, raw and ready to bleed. “My wolf's eyes are opened.”

Of course things had changed, because of the beast within him. It made him understand the instinct and the battle of the animal inside Hannibal.

He took another step. Hannibal didn't move. He watched him, as if waiting for the sword to swing. “I forgave you for the pain you brought me here,” Will spoke quietly, as he watched a brief smile wash over the Alpha's face. The chapel. 

“I remember,” he spoke, with melancholic fondness. 

Will had forgiven Hannibal, as well as decided to execute him. He had realized his own desires, and he had been determined to end it. He had been afraid, and he had already fallen for him. His forgiveness had been built on his mission to catch him. He had forgiven him for the pain he had caused, thinking there would be no more living with it, after Hannibal was gone.

He took the last step, and pressed himself close to his motionless mate.

It had been what it could only have been between them, then. Hannibal was an Alpha, Will just a human man. Today he could look beyond his forgiveness, without the promise of death.

He could forgive for what had never stopped eating him before.

He cupped Hannibal's cheek, and blinked wet eyes at his careful mate's wondering gaze. “I forgive you for the pain you brought _her._ ”

Suddenly, the room went bright with artificial light, and suddenly they were back in the prison. They stood beside the bed, dressed in messily arranged jumpsuits, as Will held the Alpha's face in his hands.

“Hannibal,” he said, as he watched his mate's bewildered eyes shift through the room, before landing back on his with pupils wide and lashes wet.

...

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi sweet dear family, I reallly hope you enjoyed this chapter! I appreciate all of your support and love so so so much!  
> I'll be in the hospital next week for tests and tests and probably some tests, so there won't be an update, which I HATE, but after that I'll be back on the rails, working towards big happenings!! ;-) Let's all enjoy it while it lasts, because we we are about 15 chapters away from the ending! (Yeah, I know, still that many XD)


	57. Chapter 57

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Will.”
> 
> Hannibal blinked at him, only once, before he smiled gently over his teeth. His hand squeezed Will's fingers, as the other came to reach out, and caress the side of Will's face with soft fingertips. The Omega sighed longingly when the touch caused a jolt of sizzling desire to run through his skin and deep into his tissue.
> 
> “Is this the end?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, whoever came back to my story! I know there hasn't been an update for weeks, and I know I have lost a lot of readers in the process of my illness, but you're here, and that all I could want! So really, thank you!!

“Will.”

Hannibal stood across from him with eyes unblinking, unmoving, unseeing. A statue in the storm. Their gaze met, a full embrace, but the Alpha's amber gold couldn't seem to focus and settle as he stared beyond the corporeal, into a world far beyond the prison.

Will stiffened at the sight of him. Lost, small almost, and took a step closer to reach out and grasp the Alpha's hand in his. His mate seemed stunned. Pained, in the way the lines of his face quivered and weighed.

Will hadn't known what to expect from Hannibal after his confession, but it hadn't been this. It hadn't been suffering.

“Hannibal?” he tried with a careful voice and he squeezed the large, warm hand with his fingers. He shifted inside the Alpha's line of sight to break the endless gaze, and finally the lion eyes colored bright with reality, and came to meet him with awareness.

“Will.”

Hannibal blinked at him, only once, before he smiled gently over his teeth. His hand squeezed Will's fingers, as the other came to reach out, and caress the side of Will's face with soft fingertips. The Omega sighed longingly when the touch caused a jolt of sizzling desire to run through his skin and deep into his tissue.

“Is this the end?” 

Hannibal's words were spoken like the melody of a beautiful, haunting song, and his smile opened with complete and warm acceptance. His eyes were bright with clinging tears and boiling love, surrender, but Will froze as his frown only deepened, and a bewildered grin pulled around his lips. 

His hand fell from Hannibal's, and he took the last step to reach for his mate's face with open fingers that cupped around the sharp jawline of his skull.

“No,” he said as he shook his head with confused determination, and looked deeply into the blend of honey gold and blood that swam before him. “No, Hannibal.” Their foreheads touched, and he felt the Alpha's heartbeat race under the fingertips pressing on his veins.

Hannibal breathed deeply between them with his eyes briefly closing and fingers clutching Will's arms. “I wouldn't fight it,” he whispered, as his hands hooked lightly in the fabric of Will's jumpsuit. His voice was a gentle, peaceful stream. His eyes were full of golden, wet adoration. “I'd let you.” 

Will heard the shallow breaths, and felt the tremble of his muscles. The stuttering heartbeat, and the tension in his hands.

“It's not the end,” he choked, releasing a tight chuckle as Hannibal exhaled a forced breath between his teeth. Searching for words as Will's fingers brushed along his fangs, his cheeks, the corners of his mouth.

“Did you expect me to kill us off, before I would ever tell you I loved you?” the Omega asked in stunned wonder, as the words both tickled and cut, rolling over his tongue. 

Outrageous. Insulting.

_Fuck._

But the thought was not as ridiculous as he was trying to make it out to be. 

Wasn't that exactly what had happened in Italy? Had he not realized he wanted to choose Hannibal, and hidden the knife in the sleeve of his pocket as a result? He had wanted to take Hannibal out of the world, hoping it would cure the dark urges the man had brought forth from the black-watered well in his mind. 

He had wanted to run with him.

Hannibal's fingers gripped Will's wrists, as the same blissful pain shimmered in his eyes. “I expected desperation, at the realization,” he said, eyes and lips unsteady, and Will felt his fingers tighten around the skull in his hands. 

The Alpha's words were fair. Nothing but fair.

Will felt, unlike those times that had passed before, the control. The key to the decision of what would happen next. Hannibal wouldn't fight him, counter him, no matter what he'd choose to do. Not anymore.

“I wondered, if you'd realize you loved me before a bond, if you would choose to let us both go,” Hannibal said, as his fingers clutched at Will's wrists. “...rather than to live the result.”

They breathed, close, holding on tightly as Will looked at Hannibal and saw his eyes glazed and his expression soft. And he knew that if he would choose for them to die together, here, his Alpha would embrace him. Rather plunge down together, than live a moment without.

It was no reach, considering their past, that Will would choose this. That he would sacrifice them in order to spare the world. It was not at all a stretch to think such a choice would be very near the top of his list.

But the truth was something else altogether. Will realized it now, as he remembered himself with honesty. He had wanted to end Hannibal's life, back in Italy. He had wanted, for both of them, to stop feeling the cruel pull of their undeniable interwoven existence. He had been terrified of himself, and he had blamed the raw need for darkness on Hannibal Lecter.

Because he had awoken it within him. Hannibal had awoken the wolf.

After the knife in his gut, Will had lived in complete agony. He'd felt the sour pull in his muscles and the empty clench of his chest. He'd needed Hannibal. Even when he had betrayed him, he _had_ wanted to join him. He had wanted to hunt with him. 

He had wanted to be with him, and that desire was terrifying, destructive. Unforgivable.

And at that time, within that bone-crushing, blood-burning fear, he had wanted Hannibal to die. He had wanted to kill the part of himself that screamed for salvation of a life that didn't suit him. He had wanted to kill the truth of his nature.

But never before Florence had he considered taking Hannibal's life.

_“You would deny me my life.”_

_“No, not your life, no.”_

And never after.

“I haven't considered that in a very long time,” he spoke gently, truthfully. Fingertips lightened their pressure against Will's skin. “The animal wouldn't allow it,” the Alpha answered for him, swallowing as his hands fidgeted against Will's skin. There was a small, determined shake of his head, and Will dropped his own hands to Hannibal's shoulders to grip, squeeze.

“That's not...” he started, copying the shake of Hannibal's head with his own, as he forced the Alpha's drowning, lost eyes back on him. “We have both changed,” he said, as his nails pushed into the fabric of Hannibal's jumpsuit.

They had. They had changed so much more than he had thought possible. He remembered how long ago they had started to shape each other.

_“Do you believe you could change me, the way I've changed you?”_

_“I already did.”_

The beast had changed them, but their humanity had reshaped alongside of it. They had allowed it to happen. They had listened, and they had shared, and they had turned to look at each other and the world from a place they could both inhabit.

Both of them had stepped closer in, together.

“The way we...” Will's voice got caught in his throat, as Hannibal's lashes blinked wetly against his cheek. The fingers on the Omega's wrists rubbed in soothing, trembling circles.

Blissfully frightened. 

“I know what you are,” Will cleared his throat, as he watched his eyes blur with tears, and felt his windpipe squeeze tight. “I know who you are,” he sniffled, as he held on to Hannibal's shoulders, drowning eyes on drowning eyes. 

“I know, like no one else, what you are capable of.”

A tear fell from the Alpha's golden eyes onto his pale cheek, and rolled down to be tasted in the corner of his mouth. Will's voice shook, but his fingers came up to cup his mate's unsteady jaw with a firm caress.

“We are not the same,” he said, and felt himself pulled in completely by the beautiful lion before him. “I will never be like you.”

Hannibal blinked, and another tear fell from his eyes onto his skin. The smile he showed was small, but he flashed his sharp teeth as Will's fingers stroked along the lips with unsteady fingers.

“But I understand you,” the Omega admitted with a shaking push of air. His thumb wiped at the tears that flowed from Hannibal's eyes, as he stroked along his Alpha's cheekbones. So weak he could crash to the floor.

“I've always had reasons to fear you.” Gold and ocean blue poured freely into platinum. “But after...” Again, his voice broke inside his throat as he remembered all they had endured together over the last few weeks. His heat, their separation, The Dragon, Molly, Will's injuries and their shared minds. Heartbreak and sex and beautiful belonging. Completion. 

Jack, Alana, Hammings. Anger, betrayal, murder.

“I trust you,” Will told him, wet fingers leaving traces along his Alpha's skin. “With me, I trust you.”

And he could see fangs, as Hannibal smiled through his blind, tearing eyes, and released Will's wrists to reach for his Omega's face in return. Quivering hands wove through his curled hair with such care and savoring admiration it was like he'd never touched him before in his life.

Will shivered and closed his eyes into the sweet caresses behind his ears. “When I see the horrors through your eyes, I see them with the beauty, the love and the forgiveness that you designed and intended,” he broke, as his own hands copied the path of Hannibal's fingers on his Alpha's skin. 

His eyes fluttered before he opened them, and met his mate's through the tears that clouded them.

“Your vision is not mine. Not always,” he admitted, with a huffed, crooked smile that the Alpha mirrored with carefully twitching lips. “But I know and accept that I belong with you.”

Hannibal dropped his hands from Will's neck, slid them over his arms and took his fingers between his, lowering their entwined hands between them. He didn't drag up his nose, nor was his face an ugly puffy red like Will's own probably was.

No, Hannibal Lecter was fucking grace, even when crying. 

“So, what happens?” the Alpha asked his mate with a voice like sandpaper, as their hands swayed between their bodies, clasped.

Will smiled, before he shrugged, and met the deep, warm spark of gold with his own eyes as he watched him behind the thinning veil of fear and doubt. “It's just this,” he said, pulling his lips over his teeth. “This is me, telling you.” 

Will moved in to catch another teardrop with his lips, as they brushed Hannibal's wet, salty skin. His cheekbones, his cheek, the corner of his lips. “I love you.”

There was a deep, desperate whimper against Will's temple as he felt Hannibal's body shake, weaken, as his hands came to cling at Will jumpsuit with a heavy grip. There was a sob that wrecked silently through the Alpha's body, as Will caught him, held him, smiled through his own tears with lowered lids of beautiful bliss.

“I love you.”

**

Guards came to usher him out before breakfast, but neither Will nor Hannibal cared to let go as they kissed – languidly, lazily, happily – and allowed minute after minute to tick away. Black uniforms waited with shuffling feet and pink cheeks, for Will to step out. And Will did step out, reluctantly. 

There were still things to do.

He had made a quick stop at his apartment for some clothes and supplies and breakfast, before he picked up a newspaper at the, now familiar, deli down the street. The clerk refused his money with a wave of his hand and silently threw a pack of cigarettes on the counter as he smiled his near-black teeth bare. “Thanks,” Will said, a little bewildered, as he stuffed the pack in his coat pocket and folded the newspaper under his arm on his way to the bus stop. 

Louis must be bringing good business to that place, Will thought to himself as he got on the city bus and claimed a seat in the back. The engine roared to life, and the paper burned under his arm. Only a fifteen minute drive. 

Waiting out his destination, Will folded the paper open in his lap.

The headline was as expected, bold and bright, and telling him everything he needed to know:

_Journalists die in gruesome office fire._

Will inhaled and felt a little shiver pull his shoulder, as his eyes made a quick scan through the article: 

The fire had been fueled by gasoline, and the severely burned corpses of both Freddie Lounds and Bryan Mann had been 'unofficially' identified. This was done quite shortly after being brought into the morgue, as their coworkers could all confirm the two would have been in the building at the time of the fire. The office was destroyed, as was the side of one of the neighboring houses. 

All evidence, it said, had likely been lost in the sea of flames.

Will licked his lips as he felt a warm glow spreading through his limbs. His finger traced the letters, and his eyes brushed down the page.

The speculation was that Bryan Mann had killed Freddie Lounds and had committed suicide after the release of her slandering article about him, or that Freddie had burned them both in a murder/ suicide that could be linked to her financial and legal troubles.

It was a beautiful mystery, and with a bit of luck, it would remain just that.

Will felt the bus rocking on the road, and looked out the window to see they had entered the less 'kept' part of the town. Buildings lost their color, and holes were present in the brick roads as the bus shook and sputtered on its way in.

He flipped the pages, and a few in he found what else he had been looking for: the story of a murder in a small, local motel. 

_Motel owner found strangled to death in own lobby._

Will felt a little burst of pure thrill bursting from his chest to his fingers and toes, as he watched the picture of a familiar face looking up at him. 

_Mr. Albert Kolent, age 37._

Hannibal must have felt this way every time he watched his own creations appear on the news. Will could so easily picture the man in a fancy dress robe and slippers, coming down the stairs early morning to collect the paper from the mat. He would make himself a cup of expensive coffee, and he would hum with pleasure as he sat at the kitchen table and admired his art like proud painter at a gallery.

The article on the motel was short, the murder already a day old, but it said the owner of the motel had been brutally strangled to death with a power that had completely crushed his windpipe. His coworker had been arrested after evidence had been found on the body. Prints on his throat, saliva on the man's arm, and a rip in the man's orange sweater. The motive was an immense financial fraud, detected in the database of their PC, and a huge pile of illegal video recordings of guests staying at the motel. 

Will cleared his throat to hide a snort. This was insanity. 

He remembered Hannibal promise that the scene would be dealt with, but... 

Louis was good. Louis was very good.

The attorney had assured him by email that any of the video footage showing him in his room at the time of his stay, had been deleted. Nevertheless, he still felt most uneasy with the idea that these men had watched hundreds of innocent people, taking a shower, a piss, sleeping, watching TV, having sex...

For that alone, they deserved everything brought upon them. For that alone, he felt completely justified in his crime.

It felt good.

The bus drove past a series of shabby-looking houses, where windows started getting dirtier, or went missing all together. Some of them were completely boarded shut. 

He was almost there.

The bus stopped, and he sniffed the air of car fumes and rotting garbage when he stepped onto the street. Smiling nonetheless.   
He was in an excellent mood.

He remembered, clearly, the times where no days were ever excellent. Where all of them had felt gray, rather than golden. Not today. Not of late.

The walk to the address he had engraved inside his memory was a good ten minutes, and he enjoyed the quiet stroll, despite the icier wind present in the air. By the time he stepped onto the stairs that led to a worn, wooden door, his cheeks were flushed and his gloves... truly a necessity.

He was here.

The building was tall and sad, right in between those in an exactly similar state. Gray walls, cracked windows and weeds along the line of bricks. Most of the houses seemed vacant, deserted, as were most of the parking spaces. There was nobody around. No one to be seen.

No one to see him.

Perfect.

He pressed the doorbell, but didn't hear it ring behind the door. It wasn't responding, and Will wondered briefly if electricity was turned off. He opted, then, for a loud knock on the dark glass, and waited until he saw movement stirring behind the door. 

Someone was there.

When the door opened, just enough for a peek, he saw the one good, hazel green eye of Frederick Chilton appear, and watched how it widened in shock at the sight. 

The man had never been very good at hiding his intentions and emotions behind that sleek appearance. To Will, he had always been slimy rather than slick.

“Will Graham,” the man said with clear apprehension, and Will watched the pale cheeks and purple eyelids of the former psychiatrist. He looked terrible. Older.

A couple organs shyer and a bullet through the face would do that.

“Hello Frederick,” Will said, as he smiled politely at the skittish man and stuffed his hands casually into the pockets of his coat. Innocent. 

“How did you find me?” was Chilton's lashed reply, remaining partly hidden behind the door without any intention of opening it further.

Will tilted his head and smiled in confusion. “I didn't realize you were in hiding,” he replied almost jokingly as he ran casual eyes up the worn building. Gentle curiosity. But Chilton's eye narrowed, and his teeth clenched with anxiety and dread.

“Did Freddie Lounds give you my address?” he wheezed, skin growing pale, and Will blinked at the question as if it startled him. It didn't.

He had foreseen it. Foreseen it well enough to think of a lie, a lure. A little sugar-lump on the palm of his hands.

“Alana Bloom did,” he told Chilton instead with a steady, open gaze, and watched the surprise unfold on the man's face. “She informed me you are looking for new projects to take on.”

Alana Bloom. Oh yes, Chilton wanted in with her. He wanted in with all the people still worthy of their title. What she did, what she thought... it carried proper weight for poor Frederick.

Will kept his face blank, still. Nothing more and nothing less than the Will Graham Frederick had met all these years ago. Not pleasant enough to be an associate, not important enough to be a friend. Not dangerous enough to be of interest. “I am here to discuss a business offer.”

Ah. A little light turned on in the black pupil, and suddenly blood seemed to stream through the little veins beneath his pale cheeks. Business. Frederick liked business. 

“What offer?” the man asked him, a little too greedily, and Will forced himself not to smile. This building was enough to prove every suspicion he'd already had. Freddie Lounds hadn't been the only one with financial troubles. 

Frederick was broke.

Doctor Chilton, once the head of a criminal hospital, had been cut open, framed and shot, and had lost the position he so cherished. A position that had given him status, money, a chance to experiment with his patients without inspecting eyes... a God complex.

Now that he had lost that position, he was nothing more than a dirty, dirty gossip journalist and writer; all his subjects hated him, and his readers were hardly loyal enough to pay his bills. This building wasn't an office. He was living here. It was his home.

“Why don't we discuss this inside?” Will offered, as if clueless to the fact that Frederick was still guarding the door with his life. Again, the cheeks paled, the eye widened, his crooked lips opened in a sudden, growing panic.

“Freddie Lounds is dead,” Chilton blurted through the crack of the door, and Will tried to hide the fact that a shiver burst from his lower back, all the way up his spine.

Freddie Lounds was dead.

_He_ had killed Freddie Lounds.

Will wanted to gleam with pride, own that murder, that beautiful destruction, but he knew that would only shut him out of Frederick's side of the door. 

And he had plans for Frederick Chilton.

He pitied Hannibal for having to hide all the beauty he had created without being able to share it, own it, as the people around him gasped and marveled at his monstrous creations.

Will held up the newspaper instead. 

“I just read about it,” he said, and watched Chilton's eye narrow as he glared at the headline before raising his gaze back to Will. 

“And that's why I'm not letting you in,” he sneered, as Will watched his nervous blinking, the tongue that wet those dry, cracked lips. Chilton was dressed in a white shirt that wrinkled a bit around the waist, and slacks that were smudged with a coffee stain or two. His hair was done, but the wax was getting grainy by his temples, like it was layer upon layer... old, greasy. His cheeks were scruffy, his skin looked oily; Frederick didn't have running water inside his new home.

“You think I did this?” Will asked him. There wasn't any outrage in his voice, nor true surprise. He knew he was here for theater, but he wasn't going to turn this into a soap opera. 

He wasn't Hannibal Lecter.

“Either that, or you know who did,” Frederick accused him with a glaring eye, and Will silently applauded the man's courage and cleverness. If anything, Frederick had learned some true bravery over his many unfortunate years. 

Chilton was no stranger to groveling and bending for those with stirring fingers, and thick, heavy wallets. Will, however, had never been more than a convenience, a subject or a nuisance to the doctor. Real fear or admiration had never brushed the surface between them. Like Freddie Lounds, Frederick knew Will could be a possible threat to his life, but didn't actually feel the need to tiptoe around him.

“I know about the videos, Frederick,” he said, and watched the leering man stiffen. “I know about the offer you made Miss Lounds.”

For a split second, Will expected the door to be shut in his face when pale fingers clenched around the frame, but even though the crack did narrow, the curious eye of the magpie sparkled at the mention of an offer. 

Money. 

Chilton didn't reply, but waited silently behind the door. Will knew he was unwilling to open his mouth and give away any information Will did not already have about the stolen discs. But he couldn't walk away. His greedy curiosity beckoned him to hear Will's offer.

“She went behind your back, seeking me out,” Will said, smirking a little smile on his lips. “because she couldn't afford to take it.”

And Frederick had known this, because not surprise but spite showed openly on the stoic face of the doctor. Chilton must have been livid when finding out Freddie had her own ways of making money and success. Quite possibly in a manner as grand and popular as Chilton's raunchy sex tapes would be, of which the content could very well stain his reputation as a writer and journalist forever. 

No, Freddie was supposed to publish the tapes. He only wanted the money.

“I think _I_ can,” Will said, trying a small step closer to the door, which widened by a couple of inches the moment he had finished his sentence.

“What do you...” Frederick yelped, and suddenly two eyes were visible from around the door. Two nostrils, two eyebrows, a prosthetic to hold up the man's collapsed face. He looked at Will with true confusion, and a glint of something...

...possibility. 

Will said he could take the offer.

Frederick smelled opportunity. 

Cash.

“I need the videos,” Will told him with a clench of his shoulders. “That's all I care about.” The door didn't close further when he took a careful step closer.

“I will pay you,” he said, and watched Frederick's breathing turn shallow. “I just need those discs.”  
He rested one hand on the post of the door frame, and settled his ocean eyes worryingly on Frederick.

The lost stray, the pained puppy. Just as people expected from him.

“Did Lecter...?” Chilton started, scraping his throat, and Will felt his nostrils' desire to flare at the disrespectful title. But he had succeeded. Will Graham must have been sent here by his Alpha mate, being the submissive, bewildered half of the duo. Everything that happened, was under the influence of his dominant, Alpha mate.

Frederick _would_ believe that.

Just like Alana. Just like Jack.

“Hannibal doesn't know those tapes are out in the world,” Will said, his voice a hush as if frightened someone would hear them. As if in actual fear. He took another step to the door, which widened enough for Chilton's shoulders to both become visible. 

Reel in the fish: “...and I would _really_ like to keep it that way.”

He did wonder. Hannibal hadn't seen the tapes but he did know of their existence. If he suspected anything had happened to them, he'd never led anything on. But he did know Will had a mission of his own, involving Freddie Lounds, the motel, Frederick Chilton. He knew enough already, Will had no doubt about it.

“ _I_ lost those discs. _His_ discs,” he said, smoothly placing one hand against the opened door. His voice quivered slightly in his throat, as his eyebrows went up beneath his curls. Opposite him, Chilton looked at him with a less guarded expression. 

“Frederick, I'm the only human being he has access to,” He lowered his voice, bringing it to a heeded whisper as he widened his eyes with an innocence he never possessed. “I'm the only one he can harm.”  
And there it was. The trauma and fear Fredrick had lived all these years... the loneliness in his suffering, the thumb that pushed down upon him whenever he went to play with the real doctors that looked at him down their noses. Gideon, Alana, Hannibal Lecter...

And that shiny, imaginary bag with the dollar sign on it.

“I need to make that deal with you.”

Here, seeing Will's twitching eyes before him, under the thumb of an Alpha he was helplessly linked to, what more could he do but see himself in Will Graham's suffering?

What more could he want but his offer to pay?

“Come in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!! Seriously, thanks soo much that you are still reading. I've been diagnosed with lyme disease, and it sure explains why I have been feeling sick this past year, so I'm glad to know what is wrong, but it's also scary, and the treatement to make it, hopefully, a little better is a heavy one, so I feel sick a lot. Which is why there hasn't been updates, and I don't know how regualr my updates can be, but I am really trying to pick up the weekly thing as much as possible! I won't ever abandon this story, even if everybody forgets about it, it's my baby! :-P I feel a little insecure about it, because I can't do longer writing sessions, which makes the overview a little harder, but I hope it was fun! YAY, there was kissing! ;-P LOVE you guys!!!


	58. Chapter 58

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chilton's eyes met his over the laptop, as the man typed a quick set of numbers and letters Will assumed to be a password. “So,” Frederick said, his voice thick in his throat, “you are telling me you are afraid of Hannibal Lecter?” he spoke with both recognition as well as doubt. “Because I've seen the tapes, and you don't seem...”
> 
> Will's jaw clenched, and his fingers tightened on his knee. But his voice remained calm as he answered. All of it, an act. “That was during our heat, Frederick,” he said, pained. “He needed me, then.”
> 
> He looked down, pretending to be fidgeting with his fingers. “Now, right now, he's...” He took a breath – a deep, deep sigh.
> 
> “He's an animal.”

“Not really your usual style,” Will said as he walked down the cold, empty hallway where his footsteps echoed dully against the walls, missing chunks of stucco. The floor was white with dust and plaster, and the laminate flooring was worn and dented where heavy furniture had been dragged out over it.

The place was a ruin. A squatters' building.

“It's just a temporary office space,” Chilton mumbled, waving the words away with a tense, sour expression as he walked ahead of Will to a room in the back. One vicious eye found its way over the man's shoulder to glare at the Omega. This place, it was a cruel crack in Chilton's pride. “My new office is still under construction.”

Will pretended not to notice Frederick's flustered expression as he allowed his eyes to roam the space with casual interest. “Right,” he commented lightly, as his teeth bit into the back of his lip. Poor, proud Fredrick. The shame of poverty. The shame of failure on the scale of society's standards. The scale of status and success. 

Will had never felt any shame in being down on the wrong side of that scale. Words like power and money never held much meaning to him. Hannibal, he knew, was different that way. But Hannibal, unlike Frederick, had no problem manipulating the scale to tilt it in his favor.

Failure was not a word that daunted the Alpha. Not when society was attached to his fingers with strings.

They entered a space that was originally designed to be the dining room, all the way in the back of the house. There were no windows, and the furniture consisted of a desk, a bookcase, a sofa that looked slept on, and a deckchair. By the wall were two unmatching dining chairs, stacked.

Chilton walked around the desk, and gave a vague nod to the chairs to indicate Will should help himself to a seat. And as the Omega did, the doctor had reached into the drawer of his desk to pull out a laptop... and a gun.

Will sank down on one of the wobbly chairs as he watched the semi-automatic hand gun being placed on the desk beside the laptop. Chilton's fingers lingered on the device, as he looked up to cross eyes with Will. 

“For safety,” he murmured, as two fingers remained pressed against the grip. Frederick was a fool, but not within his own limits. He didn't trust Will, which was smart. Thinking one could fight off an Omega or an Alpha with a gun, that was foolish.

The beast was faster, heard and saw what the human senses couldn't detect. The beast felt pain, just like the human did. But it didn't let it stop him. 

“Surely not mine,” Will remarked dryly, as he cocked an eyebrow at the weapon under the twitching man's hand. It was nice. Chilton had always looked at him with either leering eyes or distaste. The notion of fear before he'd truly earned it, was something that settled in his stomach like one of Hannibal's home-cooked meals.

Knowing that it was only there to grow.

Chilton placed his free hand at the keyboard of his booted laptop. Then, he shook his head like a nervous tick, before a finger came to loosen the collar of his shirt. His pupils narrowed, as he looked at Will with a pinch of desperation. “If I kill you, I know Hannibal Lecter will string me up to the ceiling like he did with that Dragon man.”

The man swallowed, twitching his lips down, as he admitted the fault to his own plan. And Will congratulated him inside the space of his own mind, for understanding – to a minimum – what Freddie Lounds, Jack Crawford, even Alana failed to grasp. Harming Will was a death warrant, signed. By Hannibal, vicariously... or not.

Will had no doubt his Alpha would be standing in this very room within hours if he chose to.

But today, Will Graham could handle himself well. He could string his own people to the ceiling, would he desire to.

“I have no doubt he has an elaborate plan thought out for you,” Will spoke truthfully, as he tapped his fingers gently against his crossed knee. He wondered how much that plan would differ from his. He also wondered how the Alpha would feel being denied the death of Doctor Frederick Chilton.

Not that it changed anything. Not that it mattered. 

In the end, he knew the Alpha would be more than satisfied.

Chilton sighed, his unhealthy color turning grayer behind his loose skin. “He always did,” he said, almost with acceptance. A knowledge that Hannibal Lecter had his name on a list, and that list would be wiped clean by the end of the locked up psychiatrist's life. The death of the Dragon had brought forth the awareness that Hannibal still had influence. He still had power, even inside the glass walls of his prison cell.

The Dragon's death made all of them, all of those people on that list, more aware of that fact than ever before.

Chilton's eyes met his over the laptop, as the man typed a quick set of numbers and letters Will assumed to be a password. “So,” Frederick said, his voice thick in his throat, “you are telling me you are afraid of Hannibal Lecter?” he spoke with both recognition as well as doubt. “Because I've seen the tapes, and you don't seem...”

Will's jaw clenched, and his fingers tightened on his knee. But his voice remained calm as he answered. All of it, an act. “That was during our heat, Frederick,” he said, pained. “He needed me, then.”

He looked down, pretending to be fidgeting with his fingers. “Now, right now, he's...” He took a breath – a deep, deep sigh.

“He's an animal.”

And the wolf inside him perked his ears, before they lay flat against his head with satisfaction as Will remembered sharp teeth in his neck, a hot tongue on his throat, and sharp nails against his inner thighs. Oh yes, his mate could be savage, wild. But it only made his senses sing.

The intake of a sharp gasp was music to Will's ears, and he lifted his innocent ocean eyes to see Frederick clenching his desk with his fingers. Staring into nothing, and most likely remembering a moment where Hannibal had showed him the beast behind the porcelain mask.

“Hannibal the Animal,” Frederick mumbled under his breath, and Will flinched beyond the other man's sight. God... The name truly had some awful, awful rhymes. 

“You, _of all people_ , understand what he's like,” he urged, as Chilton blinked away his visions of horror. “He has screwed me over, framed me, set me up.” Will leaned forward on his chair, placing elbows on his thighs as he watched Chilton's eyes set on him. “...just like he did with you.”

For a second, Will watched the memories flash behind Frederick's eyes, and saw the recognition, the understanding of his fear. Chilton recalled the time Hannibal had showed up at his house, dressed in the clear suit over his clothes, and with Abel's mutilated corps stored in his home. “You're a victim of your own Alpha mate,” the man said, with a strong sense of unease.

It was, most likely, already forming into an idea for an article, a book, about the poor Omega, trapped by the monster that was his murderous Alpha mate, and seeking help, refuge, from a wise but fallen psychiatrist. 

It could be made into a movie.

“If he notices I lost those discs, he will be enraged, ferocious.” Will said, the words a sharp whisper in the nearly empty room. “I need your help.” He watched Frederick's eyes widen with the rise of his dramatic tone.

Hannibal enraged, that was a threat. That was a threat for everyone.

“I'll pay.”

Ah. The wide eyes caught a spark of light, and shoulders straightened beneath cotton. Chilton folded his hands on the desktop as he asked him: “With what money?”

Will's fingers reached for his inner pocket, as he fumbled the button out of the hole. “His,” he said, eager to keep the man's attention. He pulled out the brand new credit card from his coat, and held it between his middle and index fingers to show it. “He gave me this.”

A frown deepened on Chilton's gleaming forehead as his eyes stroked the golden card in Will's hands. “He gave you a credit card...” he said, with poorly hidden, disturbed wonder. “...so you can act like his eyes, ears and hands outside of the prison.”

Well....

The conclusion wasn't far-fetched, based on what Will had been feeding him. The Omega kept his eyes open, still, on the proud man who seemed alight with new insight. “You are his hitman.” 

Will didn't answer, but kept his eyes unreadable as they met with calculating hazel-green. Inside his mind, he was scouting out the places Frederick could have used to hide something. Something of great, great value.

“Did he ask you to kill me?” Chilton asked, his voice tightening on the question. Will smiled bitterly, to cover up the smile of humor as his gaze hit the ceiling with a deep sigh, and placed his fingers together on his lips.

“He is demanding that I kill for him, whomever he can't kill himself,” he lied to the roof, and heard Frederick's sharp intake of breath. Will's eyes quickly lowered to catch a shiny sheen of sweat being wiped from the man's temples. He kept his gaze sharp, determined, when he looked Chilton in the eye, clenched his fingers to fists and said: “But I won't.”

The silence was a long breath from the quivering man's lungs, before Will scrunched his nose, grimaced, as if something inside his own mind tormented him.

“I won't become like him,” he spoke convincingly, as he watched Chilton stunned, awed, high up on a steep ledge. A mind and a will, breakable as glass, kneadable like clay with every role of his palm against the lump.

The pause hung beautifully in between them. “I just want the tapes,” Will said, sagging his shoulders with a feigned hopelessness. His lips tightened, and his eyes dropped as he wrung his hands together. The image of polite desperation.

Chilton didn't trust him. Didn't respect him, didn't fear him, didn't admire him. The only thing he could do, was pity Will Graham. 

Because Frederick saw himself in the frightened, lost figure before him. 

And Frederick Chilton pitied himself.

“Mister Graham...” Will heard him clear his throat, his voice tight and his hands clenched on the rim of the desk. He knew it was the acknowledgment, the confirmation, that Hannibal wanted him destroyed, that had shaken the doctor from his ears to his feet. And the money, well, that could be just the ticket to get out of this nightmare.

Dear, oh dear. Will could see the poor man's thoughts racing behind those eyes. The solution seemed obvious, but Chilton was still sniffing for the catch, the betrayal. Will was no ally, and the man knew he could choose to deny him, run, and hide. He knew he could disappear, publish those tapes himself from a safe place far away from Baltimore. 

He could choose wiser.

But Will had an even fatter worm for the hook. Chilton didn't _want_ to run and hide like the spider in the shed. No. He wanted to be treasured, admired, valued, like the Koi in the millionaire's pond. All Will had to do, was offer him the opportunity. Something a little bit more... Chilton's style.

“Like I said, I have a business offer,” Will waved the fat worm in front of the magpie's nose. The greedy eyes started to gleam. Will watched him with a tilted head, building up the suspense inside Chilton's mind like air in a balloon.

“You can write Hannibal Lecter's biography,” he said, knowing his bait was the gold that was missing from Frederick's treasure chest. His ultimate desire. Fame, wealth, success, guaranteed.

Because Hannibal Lecter was, and remained, hot. Hotter than the Tooth Fairy. Hotter than any killer out there.

Will had Googled him, once... maybe more, and had found people writing their theses on the man. Movies, plays, TV series... there had been plans, rumors on all of them, but no official biography ever went in production. Will wondered if Hannibal had gone through all those plans and wrung them in his hands, unimpressed with scripts, actors, the beauty and art...

”...and have it published with his full approval,” he added to the sentence, most importantly of all. Something Chilton never had, and never would achieve. 

Instantly, Frederick's dark brow frowned low, disbelieving, distrusting. “Does he know about this offer?” Chilton asked him as he folded his arms across his chest.

“I'll convince him,” Will shot back, copying the gesture with his own arms. “When my next heat comes on.” Shining confidence through the make-believe fear. “I have my own means to persuade him.”

He would have felt dirty, using this particular image to lead the horse to water. But it didn't matter. The horse wouldn't get his drink.

Chilton's eyebrows did a quick pull up, as he pursed his lips, and stretched his fingers. “I'm aware,” he said meaningfully, and Will hid a sudden growl in his belly as a vision of Frederick watching him and Hannibal on those tapes with those greedy, beady eyes flashed inside his mind.

“ _I'll take the eyes, if they offend,_ ” Hannibal had told him in their palace. He would.

Chilton straightened in his chair, and placed his folded hands on the desk before him as numbers rattled behind his eyes. “I want a shining review and recommendation from Doctor Lecter himself,” he said, as color and life blossomed back into his hollow cheeks. “Perhaps a preface...”

Will licked his lips, but kept them from pulling up as he took a deep breath through his nostrils. “I can't do magic, Frederick,” he spoke dryly, as he watched Chilton's sharp eyes trace him for places to knead, like a kitten searching for milk. He tasted opportunity, and he wanted to dry out the entirety of the offered well.

Will narrowed his eyes at the hunger that made the trapped rat foolish, and blind. “But I guess I'll learn,” he offered then, humoring, because it just didn't matter. The fat worm on the hook was nothing but a piece of dead string.

“I offered Freddie Lounds the videos for 1.7 million dollars,” Chilton dumped between them, with a flatness that Will found offensive for such numbers.

He knew the material was juicy, intimate, explicit stuff, but it was hardly an HD quality porn production. 

“No wonder she declined,” he was quick to answer with a huff, and watched Chilton's eyes narrow. The man could have asked for a hundred million more...

The dead piece of string was still no worm.

“OK, fine,” he said, sighing and wiping a hand across his forehead, as if brushing away the sweat that was forming there. He could throw around that kind of money, when it was nothing more than colored paper in a Monopoly board game. 

Will wouldn't be surprised, however, if Hannibal could afford to actually spend these numbers, without feeling a dent.

“OK?” Chilton tested, and Will watched the conflict dance across his features like a restless fly. The distrust, the eagerness, the heed and the greed...

“I have no time to haggle, I need them,” Will said, point-blank, rubbing his face with tired desperation. “So, yes... OK.”

Through his eyebrows, Will watched Chilton's hand beginning to shake on the desk, right near the forgotten gun. His salvation. If this was true, he would be back in one of the shag pile carpet, waxed furniture, long-windowed offices the world had to offer. Too good to be true, too good to pass up, Frederick forgot to look behind him as he followed the smell of success. 

“Just... type up a contract. Anything. I'll sign it right now.”

He didn't stay to watch Chilton's stunned expression, as he rose from his chair, and reached for his lower back with an arch and a stifled groan. The chair was uncomfortable, and provided him with an excuse to stretch his legs and saunter the room now that Frederick's attention was forced away.

Quick clicks of a mouse were followed by hasty fingers on a keyboard, and a look over his shoulder provided Will with the view of the elated, bewildered man with a flushed face and increasingly unkempt hair as his hands brushed it from his eyes.

If Will signed a document promising him a book deal, a little bit short of 2 million dollars and a free pass for any future Lecter / Graham revenge plans, well, that would just be the sun rising on a very cold, dark night.

Will heard the old floor creak under his weight as he paced along the wall, where one, framed painting of a crying woman wrapped in thin sheets had the purpose of covering some cracks in the wall. She was too small, the crack was everywhere.

“You didn't have an easy life, Frederick,” he said, as a finger brushed a worn, wooden filing cabinet with a broken handle. Chilton was tough like weeds. What misery life had thrown at him, he had overcome. In return, he had never been afraid to turn that misery onto someone else.

“I hope to have, now,” Chilton replied, as he typed blind, turning a sharp eye on the wandering Omega. The gun was still by his fingers.

But Will didn't look back. Instead, he watched the near-empty, crumbling room, and noticed three empty bottles of cheap liquor beside the book case.

“A lot of people gain some sort of...” Will sighed, and he stretched the fingers on one hand. “...self-reflective skills, throughout such hardship,” he smiled, without turning. The typing didn't slow, but Frederick's breathing sped ever so slightly.

“Not you,” Will sighed, as he traced the dusty frame of the crying lady. “Not you.”

Behind him, a throat was cleared. “I was never under the illusion that you liked me,” he heard Frederick speak behind him through stiff jaws and clenched teeth. No. From the moment they had been introduced in Chilton's office, they had always twisted and turned with friction. Like two opposing magnets.

“Likewise,” Will smiled, as he eyed the two, linked cabinets behind Frederick's chair. Perhaps...

No, they had never been friends. Will wondered, with honesty, if Frederick had ever known such a thing as true friendship. Even love.

“I could stop to ask you why you did everything you did in your life,” Will continued, as he passed the bookcase, and watched Chilton's hazel green follow him there over the screen. His typing fingers slowed. “... and why you made the same mistakes over, and over, and over...”

His fingers traced the spine of an old, dusty medical book, and the typing fingers halted, stopped. He looked back to see Frederick looking at him with unblinking eyes, and a tense expression. Will smiled, and released the book. 

“But I don't have to,” he said. “I already know all the answers.” He walked a slow path from the bookcase, towards the back wall behind Frederick. “It's exhaustingly easy to stop and reflect on your life, Frederick.” 

He came to lean against the filing cabinet with one hip, as he crossed his arms and looked down on Chilton, who turned his chair to follow his moves. The glow of promised gold was still there, but his gleaming eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Hazel green flashed with anger. “And yet, here you are, pleading with me for a deal to save your life,” Frederick sneered back at him, as his fingers lingered on the keyboard. Still willing to believe....

Will huffed, and tilted his head with a playful nod. His eyebrows jerked up and his eyes widened briefly, showing the amusement behind the dark curls over his forehead.

Had Frederick really believed him? Or had he just needed to?

“What if that was just a ruse?” he said, smirking gently over his teeth as he watched Fredrick's heeding eyes. 

“What if I already have the discs, Frederick?”

_Flash._

In a split second, those hazel eyes shot through the room, back to the bookcase. Back to where Will had broken his concentration moments before. 

Ah.

It was the bookcase after all.

Chilton's hands grasped the gun as Will pushed himself away from the cabinet, and stepped around the desk. He pretended not to notice how shaking hands folded tightly around the grip. “If I'm honest, Freddie Lounds was a more interesting catch.”

Chilton released an audible gasp as he followed Will with the barrel and came to stand before him with only the desk between them. The promise of gold was washed away. What was left, was the promise of blood.

“She was rotten, inside,” Will continued. “ _You_ are just... filled to the brim with nothing but yourself.” He looked down his nose at the shrinking, angry man, who pointed the gun right to Will's chest as his face became soaked with frightened, cold sweat.

“I knew _you_ killed her,” the man gnawed at him, and Will licked his lips, not paying the gun any mind. “And yet, you invited me in,” he answered mockingly, as his fingers dug into the pocket of his coat.

“Don't worry, Doctor Chilton,” he almost sang, as Fredrick grew pale as snow over his purple veins. “Your story in death will be part of something much bigger than your life has ever touched.”

Will's hand closed around the small object in his coat, as he smiled at the small puddle of man before him. “Something world-altering.”

He took the knife from his pocket. Small, with that lovely little curl on the blade. Similar to the one Hannibal had pushed into his belly, but longer, deeper. One that he would never have survived.

“But you will become a masterpiece,” Will said, glowing with the proud words as Chilton's fingers started to search for the trigger when his eyes spotted the knife in Will's hand. 

“My very first,” the Omega hummed with a vibrant feeling of anticipation, before he slowly brought up his left hand to place on top of the gun, lowering it down to aim at the floor. In the same instant, as if in slow motion, he brought out the knife to slide it deeply through into the belly of Fredrick Chilton.

“UGH.”

The doctor choked, gasped, as the gun fell from his hand to the floor. “Wha...?” And he looked down himself to see the blade of the knife sticking out of his torso. Around the wound, thick, red blood came to well and stream and stain.

His grasping hands grabbed the desk as terror filled his eyes, and Will knew exactly what he was feeling. He knew exactly what it was like to feel the life drip from you within an instant. He had felt this too, almost exactly like it. The only difference was that he had been hurting much more profoundly in that moment; betrayed by Hannibal, and by himself. He had watched the pain in Hannibal's eyes, and realized the mistakes he had made. Realized what it truly was that he had wanted. 

With a sharp yank, he pulled the blade back out, and heard the Doctor cry as blood began to stain Fredericks teeth red. “You...” the man wheezed, as one hand grasped his own waist. “You....”

His eyes flashed sharp, as the whites of his good eye became hard and flat, like milky glass.“You are Hannibal Lecter.”

Will laughed, mocking the astounded words and the eyes that grew large with the horrified realization. Chilton looked at him, and saw his Alpha shining through the icy blue light in his eyes. But it wasn't Hannibal he saw. 

“I am Will Graham,” he said, before he took the knife, and used blunt force to push it between Chilton's ribs. “This has always been me.” A lung collapsed, as did Chilton against the desk, before he withdrew the blade again. “A real psychiatrist would have seen that.” 

Chilton slid off the desk onto the floor with a coughing whimper, gushing blood that spilled around him on the damaged laminate. 

“Hannibal did.” Will told him, as he witnessed the man's life slipped through his twitching fingers while watching the Omega with those stunned, magpie eyes. 

Frederick Chilton, just like Freddie Lounds, was long, long overdue.

“Now, where did you hide them?” Will said, as he turned back to the bookcase and walked over to slide his fingers along the rows of colorless books. Dusty and old, but undamaged. Only for show. The discs were here, a touch away, but he wasn't certain what he was looking for. Were they hidden inside one of those big medical books, or was he looking for a secret handle to a rotating door?

“I know they're here,” he mumbled, as he grimaced at the idea of having to turn this place upside down and inside out like some kind of common criminal.

Hannibal wouldn't. Hannibal would have made Frederick present them to him on a velvet pillow before he would turn the man into a spit-roast.

He wished is mate was here, with him.

Frederick groaned, and a sudden click made Will's neck tense before a loud explosion sounded from behind his back as his wolf growled and made him duck low against the bookcase. Near his ear a bullet rushed into the books and through the wooden frame.

A gunshot.

The bookcase wobbled, books scattered on the floor and everything rattled around them. Will's ears rung and his neck and shoulders cramped as he spun around, and saw the hollow shell of Frederick clutching the gun with strength-less fingers.

Oh, Will had underestimated this man's core instinct to push down and rise up, and the bold move was as disturbing as it was thrilling. To hunt and to be hunted was a game he had only played with Hannibal before. Even when the points had already been handed out, Frederick tried to fight.

The wolf moved Will fast enough to dodge the attack and grasp the gun from Frederick's fingers, before a second attempt on his life could be made. He placed the weapon back on the desk, this time, as he watched the doctor shudder and spasm on the floor. Big, bloody eyes, and hands pressed against the running wounds on his chest.

It would be merciful to end it, but for a man like Chilton, this was all the mercy he could spare.

Frederick was already lucky it was Will who had come for him, after all.

“I'm not slicing your throat,” He told him, as he dusted wood splinters off his coat. “You're going to bleed out and watch yourself spill.”

He stepped over the figure, careful to avoid the blood, as he walked back to the damaged bookcase.

“See how much of Frederick Chilton you can stand to look at,” he mumbled, before turning his attention back on the discs. The shaken bookcase was a mess, as he rummaged his way through fallen books and books and books and.....

Something else.

A green, dusty old book caught his eyes, as it stood on the second row amidst its fallen friends. Still upright, and with the corner chaffed, damaged by the bullet.

“That wasn't very smart, Doctor Chilton,” Will licked his lips as he picked up the book by the spine, and felt the weight of it to be unexpectedly heavy in his hands. The open corner revealed it to be made of metal, hollow. A tiny safe, disguised as just another piece of literature.

Through the hole in the side, Will saw plastic cases he recognized. Discs. His discs.

Oh yes. Beautiful. 

He smiled contently, as Frederick choked on his own blood behind him. With his eyes on the dying man and the metal book tucked safely under his arm, Will dug into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone.

“Is this Louis?” he said, when the phone was answered by a smoky, male voice.

“I'm going to need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so so super much for the support! ^.^


	59. Chapter 59

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beside his chair was the Omega wolf; dark brown, shaggy and with eyes as blue as the icy ocean. 
> 
> And beside the second chair was a second wolf. One Will had never seen before, but recognized within an instant. He was big with neat and shiny fur of silver and gold, and eyes that sparkled like the summer, evening sun.
> 
> The Alpha. 
> 
> Will stepped unto the porch and sank into his rocking chair, as Hannibal took his. What surrounded them was the sound of the crickets and the waves of the calm water of the stream that lay out before them, playing with the rays of the setting sun.
> 
> It was home.

It was almost three in the afternoon when Will entered his apartment. He removed his coat, his sweater and jeans to fold them into the awaiting trash bag that he'd placed right by the door. He would take them, together with the knife, to the kind owner of the deli downstairs, before the end of the evening.

Louis' instructions. 

Louis.

The man looked nothing like Will had expected. He was plumb, bald and unhealthy in a way that gave him a permanent layer of sweat on his ham-colored skin. There was an oddly sweet scent about him that could be linked to untreated diabetes. But he was confident, thorough and very fast. He was business. What a drug dealer was to a junkie, Louis was to a inexperienced murderer like himself. A necessity, if one desired to live in the free world, and continue indulging one's habits.

For now.

Will showered, and lost himself in the steam that rose around him like curling mist and fogged his mind like soft, warm cushions. He would have to shower again later that night, but that didn't matter. He still felt the need to wash away any trace of Frederick Chilton on his skin. Any speck of blood, any fiber, any lost, loose hair.

He groaned deeply when the hot water beat down on his tensed, tired muscles, and tilted his head back in the stream. There was still much to do. There would be a transformation and a presentation, before the sun would rise on tomorrow. Their schedule was tight, their time was limited, and the pictures for the press would need to be sent in before the morning's print run would be set into motion.

Will was still wet and stark naked when he allowed himself to pad out of the steaming bathroom to lie back on the sheets of his bed, and close his eyes. He had promised himself to wait, but he wanted nothing else. Nothing more, than to see him.

Hours only, and he missed him terribly. 

He huffed into the empty, silent room at his own desperation. He had never been that guy. He had never felt the need to cling to anybody or the almost painful twirl in his stomach caused by being lovesick. He had been born for a solitary life. 

Now, he despised it.

“Hannibal,” his voice called out, in his mind as well as in the room, and he spread his arms from his sides and parted his knees. Stretched out like a starfish. Behind his eyes, he dove deep, far, and tunneled through himself with more ease than ever before. Their connection had become stronger, familiar.

He followed wherever his instincts took him, and it didn't take long before he saw the fluorescent light and the white walls of the prison cell, hazed together in a whirl of color and sound at the end of a dark tunnel. He followed it to the rim, where voices could be heard as if coming through a glass against a wall.

_“I know what you're trying to do, Hannibal.”_

Alana's voice rang through the tunnel, as Will pushed himself towards the light as far as he could reach, and felt himself slide out of the darkness; into a strong, warm body that had the familiarity very close to his own. Hannibal. 

Suddenly, he watched the prison from the eyes of his mate, and felt Hannibal's skin tighten at the intrusion. In front of him, outside the glass and perched on a chair, was Alana Bloom.

“But _I_ can't separate the thought that Will leaves the prison, and suddenly there is the murder of Freddie Lounds,” she said, and Will watched her eyes on him, on Hannibal, with a heat she had never directed at him. 

No pity, but fire. 

Hannibal felt so familiar to her, and he looked so tame behind the prison glass. So much like the man she had once allowed herself to fall in love with. It was so easy to forget who he truly was, that the reminder had to be constant. She could never break her barriers down.

“You were wrong the first time that seemed to be the case,” Hannibal answered her, and his voice came from within, as well as from the outside. Speaking, as if Will had spoken the words himself in that calm, husky tone.

“We both were,” Alana bit, as she crossed her legs, clad in a plum purple suit that complimented her rosy cheeks. “But this time, she actually died.” Her face was tight with shock, fear, and the panic that came with losing one's grip on the flock of sheep.

“There's no official identification yet,” Hannibal said, and Will felt his mate's voice hum in his own chest, as well as felt his lips twitch as if on his own face. “There is no indication that Will has anything to do with this, Alana.”

Will felt his own body sink beautifully into his mate's form, as if embraced by warm water, rising from his toes to his crown, bathing him in the scent of winter fire.

“He has a motive,” Alana said through stiff lips, and Hannibal's eyebrows quirked. “Does he?” he asked, as he took a slow, calculated step towards the glass. Will could feel the movement in his own muscles, even when he was still and motionless on the bed.

“I think we all have a motive to kill Miss Lounds, my dear Alana.”

Hannibal's sly smile matched Will's, as Alana's fingers started to pull at a loose thread on her jacket. “This isn't a joke, Hannibal,” she said, before she stood from the chair, holding the backrest with her hand. “If he's out there killing,...”

She flashed a dark look when Hannibal simply smiled his silence, and Will felt his own muscles tighten at the way he could see her mind folding around the idea of _him_ as a murderer. She didn't need any proof to suspect him. She knew, as he had known from the start of this plan, that she would not be blind to his direction when bodies started piling.

Alana took a step towards the glass as she rose her chin with bravado. “They will catch him, and I will separate you,” she said, and Will felt his stomach splash with ice at the words. “I will move him to another prison, and I will make sure you'll never set foot in the same building again.”

Hannibal was calm. His muscles tightened briefly, but inside, his chest felt like an empty room with a high ceiling. Waiting, perhaps, to feel the echo of the noise someone else would present there. 

Because Will felt a sharp sting of fury slash through him like a hot sword, until his fingers and toes grasped the bed. Alana would choke on his arm before she would ever see them separated.

Inside their shared ribcage, heated rage burst open inside the calm haven of Hannibal's body.

“He doesn't like that,” Hannibal said, flat out, as he looked steady, piercing eyes on Alana, and Will could feel the affectionate smile pushing on his Alpha's face. The rage was replaced with a warm longing, adoration and excitement. His mate knew he was here.

Hannibal felt him there, within himself.

“Then tell him,” Alana sneered through the glass, straightening her shoulders as she stood on her heels. “Make sure he doesn't become like you.”

Inside, Hannibal's belly tightened. Something sour stirred within the warmth, but he did not move a single muscle as he watched Alana and allowed Will to move within him with his own temperature, his own temperament.

“Make sure he doesn't become trapped, like you,” Alana said, placing her hand on the glass, as if to show exactly where the barrier to the world began.

“What you do to me, you'll do to us both,” Hannibal told her, almost submissive against her hard tone, as the gentle waves of warmth spread from the Alpha's fingers to Will's toes. “He is me,” Hannibal said, and Will breathed the words in union on the bed in the apartment. “And I am him.”

Will couldn't see his mate, but he could feel the sparkle that danced in his golden eyes. Alana's lips tightened, and Will could see her hands quiver as she watched the mighty Alpha smile with absolutely, dreamlike sincerity. Their evolving connection was something she couldn't have, something she couldn't understand or take away. 

Something she had no control over.

“Then he _really_ shouldn't be out there,” she lashed angrily from between her teeth, before she turned on her heels, and stomped to the door. 

“He's coming home,” Hannibal told her, before they watched her disappear and heard the locks click shut behind her.

And it was just the two of them. 

Will waited, as Hannibal got to the bed and sat down on the edge, before he stretched his body on the mattress. His hands folded on his stomach, and his golden eyes closed.

Darkness.  
Both of them, in total darkness.

Will felt himself pushed back into something that was a lukewarm space of limbo, as Hannibal entered his mind with his presence.

“Will.”

And as their minds shaped and formed and gave them their familiar outlines, the room became a hall with a high, arching ceiling, and marble for floors. The walls were light, bright and made from creamy white puffs that resembled endless piles of clouds. This was the hallway to Hannibal's palace.

Will looked at his mate, dressed in gray slacks and a white, short-sleeved button-up. He was silver blond and sun kissed, and his eyes shone like gems as he looked at the Omega. “Hannibal,” Will breathed, as he reached out to adjust a strand of soft, silver hair. He was in love, and he was free within the feeling. The world was a new place.

“Join me outside?”

The clouds parted at his words, and on the other side, Will's porch was revealed. He exhaled a sigh when he spotted his rocking chair on the wooden panels, sitting perfectly friendly alongside a second one. An unfamiliar chair, darker in color, and more elegant in the way the wood was cut. Hannibal's place inside his mind. 

Beside his chair was the Omega wolf; dark brown, shaggy and with eyes as blue as the icy ocean. 

And beside the second chair was a second wolf. One Will had never seen before, but recognized within an instant. He was big with neat and shiny fur of silver and gold, and eyes that sparkled like the summer, evening sun.

The Alpha. 

Will stepped unto the porch and sank into his rocking chair, as Hannibal took his. What surrounded them was the sound of the crickets and the waves of the calm water of the stream that lay out before them, playing with the rays of the setting sun.

It was home.

Will watched Hannibal's hand stroke the top of the Alpha's head, as the beast closed his eyes and nuzzled into the hand that caressed him. Family. 

The Omega pushed his own nose against Will's palm with a little grunt, as if jealous of the given attention, and Will gave him an absent scratch behind his ear as he watched his mate and his wolf fit so beautifully in the quiet space of his mind.

No one else had ever been here before. 

He looked curiously at the Alpha wolf and watched his Omega do the same, as both he and Hannibal leaned back into the chairs and shifted their weight comfortably into the seat.

Will hummed with enjoyment as he pictured their life if they were living it here, now. They would sit and watch the sunset, cook, drink wine, walk the dogs in the field, before Will would ride his mate on the couch, basking in the warmth of the lit fireplace and the wine as they made love until sleep was all that could take them.

He cocked his head to meet Hannibal's eyes and watched his mate smile back at him. He was glowing in the dying sunlight, and Will wished, right then, that this was their reality.

“I realized something about you,” Will said, his eyes shimmering as he stroked Hannibal's glowing skin with his gaze. “...and about me.”

Hannibal eyed him curiously through his low lids, as he brushed lazy fingers through the soft, clean fur of his beast. His two top buttons were undone, and Will watched silver chest hair curl from between the opened fabric. 

“And I think I now understand better why our history together knows so much brutality.” 

Hannibal only watched him, serene in their silent haven, but Will could see his throat work thickly beneath the skin. His mate was here, undividedly, uncompromisingly, _entirely_ here with him. 

The Omega wolf pushed his nose impatiently against Will's knee, and Will reached out to stroke him soothingly. “The reason I ran _from_ you, instead of _with_ you, was because there was always something overwhelming, overpowering about you,” he said, as he felt his wolf peeking curiously around the chair at the Alpha wolf. Will smiled, and pushed his fingers against the beast's neck. Encouraging him.

“There was something I could not rise to meet,” he said, as he lifted his eyes to see Hannibal's golden eyes glitter like the sun reflecting on gentle water. Will's Omega slipped from behind the chair, carefully approaching the Alpha wolf with his head low and his shoulders high. 

“Being in your presence made me feel wild and lost,” Will said, the smile turning tender with the memories. “Incompetent, and unguided.” Hannibal returned the expression before his eyes found the Alpha wolf, gently waiting out the approaching Omega. The beast looked strong and confident, but relaxed, and his gorgeous, full, golden tail was wagging against the back of his legs.

“A mismatching piece of your incomplete puzzle,” Hannibal hummed, and Will chuckled softly at his mate as he rose a dark eyebrow. “A different species,” he answered.

Before them, the wolves met and sniffed along the others jawline before ears perked up. Shoulders straightened, tails swiped against the wood, and noses disappeared behind ears for a deep sniff of a familiar scent.

“And you wanted me, recognized me, from the moment you inhaled me,” Will said, as the Alpha wolf pushed his nose under the Omega's chin in an affectionate greeting. Curiosity had turned to recognition as both wolves gazed through lowered eyelids, nuzzling along the other's jaw.

“Yes,” Hannibal sighed, as he stretched his legs before him and crossed his ankles. His hands were folded on his lap as he tilted his head to give Will a longing look. Haunted by the memories. 

“Grasping me was like holding on to streaming water,” Will said, stretching his fingers against the air. “Because as compatible as we always were, we were, in fact, a different species.”

The Alpha wolf had started licking the Omega's ear, who closed his eyes and allowed himself to be spoiled with the affection and attention with a deep rumble from his chest. 

“You wanted us to be a family,” Will breathed, as his heels dug into the porch to slowly rock him back and forth. “But I was a dog to your wolf.” He smiled his teeth bare as the Omega wolf snuggled against the Alpha.“If I had joined, then, I would have been swallowed whole by the beast.”

On the rocking chair, Hannibal reached his hand out when the Omega wolf came sniffing closer to come in for a careful greeting. His mate allowed the wet nose to nudge against his hand, before bringing up his fingers to stroke the Omega's head with a loving scratch. Such instant familiarity.

It had always been like that, between them. From this moment, all the way back to that first breakfast in a small motel room. _“The adventure will be yours and mine today.”_

“It hurt, knowing we would fit so seamlessly, but were both made from such different material,” Will said, as he watched Hannibal's fingers dip and disappear into the deep fur of the Omega. “And it made us powerless and angry.” 

Will felt a nudge against his shoe, and saw the Alpha wolf taking the opportunity to check him out. Gold and ocean blue touched, and Will allowed the Alpha wolf to sniff his fingers. “Spiteful.”

Hannibal watched him as his wolf came to nuzzle Will's hand. “There was an unfulfilled destiny,” he agreed, as Will felt the warm wetness of the animal's nose against his skin, and chuckled. Hannibal's eyes were warm, but hazy on his as he continued: “An emptiness that left me without direction.”

Will scratched behind the ear of the mighty Alpha wolf and felt the deep purr that rumbled from the epic beast. He reminded him of the family Leonberger from his childhood. Those golden eyes were Hannibal's, in their purest, most primal form. He felt the long, soft tongue licking the palm of his hand, and saw in the gentle way he lowered his big ears and eyelids, that the beast loved him with the loyalty of that very childhood pet. And in the same instant, Will knew he loved him like a cherished member of his family.

He sighed contently as he stroked the warm, shiny fur, and looked at Hannibal to see his Omega resting his head on Hannibal's lap with his eyes closed as his mate stroked the flat ears.

Will inhaled. “Your entrance into my life transformed my desire for everything the world had to offer to a colorless, tasteless blur,” he said. “You were too bright, or too dark, against the background of my existence.”

Hannibal rolled his neck lazily against the backrest as he smiled at Will through hooded eyes, drifting on the hummed words that flowed between them. 

“You played me, from the very beginning,” Will huffed. With one last lick against his hand, the beast pulled back and started padding towards the Omega, who opened his eyes as if hearing his name called out. Both men watched as the Omega and the Alpha met before the chairs, and twisted around each other to find a comfortable spot to curl op on. 

In need for each other's company.

Hannibal watched the wolves resting their big heads on the other's back. “I shaped you to fit me,” he said, watching the perfectly intertwined creatures before them.

“Not well enough,” Will countered, as his eyes shifted sharper on his mate. Challenging. Hannibal sighed, as he placed his arms on both armrests on the rocking chair.

“Your betrayal murdered me,” he said, his eyes soft but steady. “You chose to be without me, when I couldn't be without you.”

Gold and ocean blue shimmered, vulnerable and strong as light. Around his heart, Will felt a tight squeeze as he felt himself being pulled in and drifting on the grief that belonged to the memory. “Weakness was such a new, yet familiar sensation,” he said, breathing in deep enough to feel his lungs against his ribcage as their eyes met with honesty. “One that belongs to your childhood.”

He had known before, heard from Hannibal's mouth, just what he'd endured as a little boy. How he had been taken, tortured, tormented, by the death of his little sister. How his survival had relied on the meat on her bones. His little sister. His own flesh and blood, was what he had to devour to live on.

Abandoned by everything the world had offered when he'd been born into it. A different species in a human world. Will had known, but here, on the porch, he felt it. He felt a drop of the ocean that was the pain that had consumed Hannibal numb to the world's despair. A nerve so tormented, it had died beneath the skin. 

Until him. Until Will.

“It woke something brutally violent inside you,” he said, feeling a painful contraction in his chest when Hannibal's irises opened with raw memories that drained the healthy glow from his skin. On the porch, the Omega started licking the Alpha's ear with gentle laps of his tongue.

Despite that damaged nerve being burned back to life by his presence, Hannibal never turned from him. 

“You refused to give me up, even when you tried,” Will said, smiling through the teeth that bit his bottom lip as Hannibal huffed a stream of air. Hands clutched the armrest tightly, but the Alpha's shoulders were low. Accepting. Calm.

“You were the only thing left in me,” he said, as he stretched his fingers against the wood. “You took everything, and I allowed you to do it,” Hannibal breathed a sigh that was deep, with air that was light. Warm. “And then, when we met in Florence...”

Will lowered his eyes and felt choked by the memory that lived so bright, yet so dark within his mind. “We both wanted it to end,” he spoke soft enough to be a whisper, and heard Hannibal hum his confirmation. 

“If you could live without me, I didn't want you to live.” 

The Alpha's words were clean, pure. Brought forth without spite or accusation. His eyes on the dark water of the stream. It was a punch to Will's windpipe, nonetheless. With that knife, hidden in his coat sleeve, he had left Hannibal no choice. He had been afraid to break free from the tunnel that tried to shield any other path he could choose to take.

“Would you have eaten me, had I sat at your table with my skull opened, my brain exposed?” he asked Hannibal, as his own fingers curled into the shirt against his belly. 

On the porch, the wolves continued to rub their jaws together. The Alpha wolf pushed his wet nose against the Omega's ear with such enthusiasm, the Omega shook his large head. 

“At last we would have fit,” Hannibal breathed, following his gaze to their content beasts. Will flashed his eyes back to see his mate's sharp profile against the evening light.

“And you would have lived an empty life, without your mate,” he said, realizing Hannibal must have known the sacrifice he had been about to make. He knew Will was, very likely, his potential mate. He knew, would he kill him, he could destroy his own chance of fulfillment in life, forever. 

“I already was,” Hannibal said, before he turned up his palms on the armrest. “This way, I could have forgiven you.”

Will's eyes shot up to the burning sky. Purples and reds, oranges and blues. The entangled wolves became darker, starker against the sunset across the stream.

“For my betrayal?” he asked. “Or for the way I made you feel this kind of pain, hurt...” He blinked, as he pressed his weight back against the chair. “...loss.” His head fell to the side, reconnected with Hannibal's endless eyes. A well of proud pain. “Like Misha.”

The name made the well of his mate's eyes roar with ashes, a forgotten fire. Hannibal was framed by the blood red sky, as he looked at Will. “To forgive you for the fact I had already forgiven you,” he said, “and it wasn't a decision I got to make for myself.” 

The wolves rumbled gently with satisfaction, as they seemed to have fallen asleep with their noses beneath the other's ear. They looked serene. Perfectly matched.

“And there is no fair choice to make, when all there's left is wrong solutions,” Hannibal said. Will felt himself cramp at the horror of the memories of Muskrat farm. Hannibal had doomed him. Hannibal had saved him. Hannibal had carried him home.

“And then I sent you away,” Will said, as the Omega wolf let out an unflattering snort against the Alpha's ear. “And you just couldn't let me be.” Even after years of separation, their chapter had never ended. Neither one of them had let it.

“Nor you, me,” Hannibal countered, and Will smiled at his mate in the golden red light of the sun. Hannibal had sent him that letter. But Will had been waiting for it.

“I spent a lot of years without you,” he said, as he reached his hand out to meet with Hannibal's fingers.

Their skin was warm as it slid together. “Were you happy?” Hannibal asked him. “Did it not ache?” The curiosity there was fake. It was nothing but a push for confirmation of something both already knew. And yet, they both needed to hear it said.

“It ached before we even met,” Will told him. “It always ached without you.”

Hannibal smiled as eyes burned like fire, and Will couldn't recall ever seeing him this soft. He was lineless in the clouds.

“Never again,” Hannibal told him.

“Never again,” Will agreed.

And then, they were quiet. Their fingers held each other as they sat on the porch, and slowly watched the sun die behind the sleeping wolves. Only when Hannibal's grip released him, Will noticed the Alpha had closed his eyes.

Sleeping. Soft, warm, golden in the light.

Moments ticked away, before Will stood from the chair, gently kissed the Alpha's slack lips, smiled, and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly doing better guys ^.^ Thank you so much for the support! Really hope you enjoyed this chapter! I really loved writing about this warm, yet crucial moment in their relationship! I won't update next week due to Halloween, but after that, I promise bigggg stuff! ;-) Love you!!


	60. Chapter 60

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will hummed as he placed his hands in his pockets and strolled by the crime scene without a single curious glance. The place was crowded, still, with spectators and journalists, and the sight of people craning their neck and chatting lively amongst themselves while enjoying the disruption of a dull, dusty morning, was awfully rewarding.
> 
> They were all, in a way, enjoying this death. The death of Frederick Chilton.

He watched the scene unfold from the window of his apartment. 

He sat in the armchair, drinking. Coffee, bourbon, more coffee. He watched the world sleep, and waited. Waited, for the sun to rise on a new beginning.

The first blue lines at the horizon made his stomach flutter as he witnessed the elderly man walking his dog at 6 A.M., stumbling upon his creation.

He heard the screams, and the sirens. He observed the white sheets and screens being set up to obscure the view, and he watched the forensic team pushing through the crowd that formed around the tree.

Will watched, hours on end, as he sipped his coffee and propped up his feet on the leather pouf that accompanied his chair. He saw the horror, the shock, the disturbed, wide-eyed wonder, and he savored it like a play in a theater. His play. His stage.

His audience.

He had worked all evening at the garage space Louis had provided him. Spotless when he came in, and spotless when he left it. Bleach poured, as a stretcher rolled into the back of a white van, only minutes past midnight. It had to be perfect and it had be quick, and the attorney had assured him both. 

Will huffed as he cupped his mug, and wiggled his toes in his socks on the pouf. 

Louis had quick connections and eager buttons on his phone. The man had fingers in stirring pots; he was clever, slick like fresh water eel, and he never spoke a single word more than necessary. More interestingly, the man had a surprising in with printers of the local newspaper. 

The cleanup and the phone calls were Louis'. The work, the design, the butchering, that was all Will.

By 9 A.M. the whole park had been shut down by endless rows of yellow tape, and Will swung his legs off the pouf as he went to grab his coat off the unslept bed.

Brand new. The tag was still in the collar.

The door closed behind him. 

He would never return.

He crossed the street, and passed five police officers that stood guard around those white, covering screens. Frederick was still there. Cutting him loose was not an easy task, if only in the literal sense. 

Will hummed as he placed his hands in his pockets and strolled by the crime scene without a single curious glance. The place was crowded, still, with spectators and journalists, and the sight of people craning their neck and chatting lively amongst themselves while enjoying the disruption of a dull, dusty morning, was awfully rewarding.

They were all, in a way, enjoying this death. The death of Frederick Chilton.

The stairs to the entrance were taken with legs that bounced light and free with nervous anticipation. In the hall of the prison, it was Dennis who took him through security. “Good morning.”

“A lot of commotion out there,” the guard said, as he took Will's shoes to bring them through the scanner. “They found a body in the park.” 

Will kept his eyes on the buttons of his cardigan as he worked them open with his caffeine and adrenaline driven fingers. “I suppose so,” he answered, as he handed the piece of clothing to the blond guard. 

“It wasn't the normal stuff, either,” Dennis continued, keeping the words under his breath. “Not like, a homeless guy on a bench.” Will crossed eyes with the big blues of the younger man, as he watched him lean closer to bring in the gossip. “I've met the guy in the control room once. He knows Alana Bloom.”

Will hadn't doubted the news would spread like pox, and Alana was perhaps one of the first people that would get that call. She was Chilton's successor. Who else was there to reach out to?

“It's... I want to say... Freddie Chilton?” Dennis said, as he patted his hands down Will's chest and the pockets of his jeans. Will had to breathe in deep to keep his expression unchanged. 

A lovely little mix.

“To be honest with you,” Dennis whispered loud enough for it to defeat its purpose, as his eyes scanned their surroundings with a guilty expression on his boyish face: “I can't say I was a big fan.” Will admitted he found the subsequent apologetic shrug rather endearing as Dennis felt down the legs of his pants. “He was a little... invasive, you know?” The guard swallowed, and Will scrunched away the distaste that rose at the image he could paint of Chilton being 'invasive', in the control room. 

“Well...” he said, as he flattened his lips, and pulled his arm back through the sleeve of his cardigan.

“But still...” Dennis quickly added, helping Will into the other arm.

“Still...” Will agreed, as the wool slid over his shoulders. He turned around, coming face to face with the guard, who wrung his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Did you know him?” he asked, before handing Will his shoes.

“I knew him,” Will confirmed without hesitation, as he slid his heels into the boots.

“Must be weird,” Dennis said, as he stepped back to give Will room to tie his laces.

The Omega looked up through his hair, as a small smile played around his lips. “You get used to it.”

**

“Will.” 

His foot froze on the steps of stairs below him, as his name was called out from behind. He turned mid-step to greet Alana, as he watched her hurry towards him. Hairs came undone from her updo to frame her face with messy strands, and her usually painted lips were her natural, cracked pink. 

“Good morning,” he said with calm and grace, as he saw the light in her eyes stutter and buzz like a ripped electrical cord. She was fighting, and she was losing.

Her blue eyes had never more unsteady as her fingers clenched into her black blazer. “First, Freddie Lounds...” she said, her voice rippling behind her teeth. She was clinging to her control. 

Will remembered the conversation she had had with Hannibal about that; her suspicions, her fears... And he remembered how powerful he had felt, embraced inside the broad chest of his Alpha. Her worries had made him scoff like an insolent child behind a mighty wolf.

“First?” he replied, raising an eyebrow as he leaned his weight against the baluster. He watched her flinch, as her heels came to a halt on the stone floor before him. Her hand reached for his wrist, as her elegant fingers curled around the bone.

“Tell me this has nothing to do with you,” she demanded, her voice a threat and a plea – a whisper, and a scream. Will watched her grip on his arm, before he rose his ocean eyes steadily to hers. 

None of this mattered. They both knew and understood what was in their own capacity to understand. Nothing would change that. “Will you believe me, if I tell you?” he asked her.

The expression froze on her face, as words formed in her head. Her sky blue eyes looked through mascara lashes, as her features set like stone. No. nothing he could say would ever make her trust him again. Never, after Matthew Brown, had she believed they were carved from the same wood. Not when she had found him to be ice instead.

“Then let's not waste our breaths,” Will said, almost kindly, before he twitched his wrists in her grip, coaxing her to let him go. She did, as if in a trance, slowly, before she stepped back. Her eyes on him reminded Will of the time he had come home from prison, and found her and his dogs on the porch. She had watched him with the pain of betrayal, because he had gambled with Hannibal's life. 

She had never looked at him the same, as pity had mingled with regret. Now, it was engulfed with fear.

“I'm here to visit Hannibal,” Will said, as he shifted his eyes back to Dennis who stood two steps down the stairs with a bewildered look at the exchange. The guard had no idea of what had been brewing beyond the prison walls. Will almost envied that wide, open look of innocence.

“I've got a conjugal visit left,” Will said with a nod towards Dennis. A visit Alana couldn't withhold from him. A deal was a deal.

Her lips tightened, as her expression flattened. Powerless, as she leaned towards him with eyes that begged and demanded. “What is going on, Will?” she asked him with a deep crack in her clear, soft voice.

Will blinked, before he turned back on the stairs. “I'm not an FBI consultant anymore, Alana,” he said, as he started to follow his way down the stairs, turning his chin on his shoulder to direct her, while descending down to the prison's basement. “But it looks like another copycat.”

**

Hannibal didn't look up when Will entered the room. 

He was sitting at the table with the morning paper in his hands, his eyes tracing the front page. It was only when Dennis addressed him that he stood, and walked to the glass to receive the restraints on his wrists. Will never caught his eyes, as he waited for his mate's cuffs to be placed and the door to the cell to be opened. He stepped inside, watching the Alpha's golden gaze glued to the table.

Will waited, not stepping in further as the cell locked behind him, and Hannibal's hands were once again undone by a tense, puzzled looking Dennis. The guard's eyes shot worriedly between them as he unlocked Hannibal's wrists, and watched the Alpha pace back to the table, gripping the newspaper with tense fingers.

Dennis looked at Will, as if to ask him what was happening. If it was safe for him to leave. But Will only felt his own lips stretch into a smile as he folded his arms across his chest, and watched the Alpha stand by the table, his back towards the glass.

There was nothing to fear, now. Not anymore.

Dennis' footsteps and jiggling keys faded, before the door slammed shut, and the five locks were clicked back into place. The noises echoed along the walls of glass and stone, and silence followed after.

“Good morning.”

Will took a careful, lazy step away from the door and into the room, keeping his arms folded to his chest as he watched Hannibal, with the paper clutched in his fingers. His back was tensed and alert, but his gaze seemed absorbed, sucked in by the picture that showed on the front page.

Like a punch to the gut, right before it registered inside your brain.

Will's hidden excitement squeezed his belly tight with warm tingles that perched right under his chin. Nerves, and exhilaration. 

Hannibal's reply was delayed, as if the words came through a thick fog around his head. But when he did hear him, he turned as if stung by the awareness of Will's presence.

“Will,” he said, as his wild eyes landed on his mate. Unable to settle, but unable to wander far. His cheeks were pale, but the small web of red veins that lay deeper in the skin promised a pink flush. His irises were black, engulfed completely by the pupil. He looked as if he were watching Will through the veil of another world. Impatient to be where he envisioned them.

Blunt finger nails dug into the newspaper, as Hannibal held it before his chest, showing Will the picture on the front page. Frederick Chilton in the park. “You wrote me a letter,” Hannibal said, with a voice that sounded too controlled to be just that. Against the silver hair, Will watched the tip of his Alpha's ears glow warmly.

“Embracing your nature.”

His thumb wiped over the ink, and Will looked up at Hannibal's hazed expression. For a moment, eyes connected, deep, until both men closed their lids in unison. Minds as one.

They found each other by the oak tree, in the park. 

Silent, empty. The sky was night, and the air was quiet as the streetlights framed and lit the scene as if it were painted. Crucified with ropes on the large, oak tree by the pond was Frederick. Bare-chested, with a gaping, bleeding hole where his heart should be, and metal wire stretching his arms forward in stead of to the sides, with the heart from his chest presented in his hands.

“Professing your love...”

An offering.

On his head was a crown made from red dahlias and white daffodils that dripped down his empty sockets like tears, and flowed into the hole in his chest. A message.

_I forgive you for the pain and betrayal, the poison in my mind and in my eyes. I forgive you for the destruction of my heart._

_I forgive you for what has been._

Calla lilies poured from the hole in the chest, and flowed into to tulips, rainflowers and primroses. It was a journey, a story, that only Hannibal could translate to words. A language he spoke fluently.

A new beginning of magnificent beauty. Suffering and forgiveness. Forgiveness turning to admiration, and admiration to love. The beginning of love, the declaration of love, the depth of true and naked, painful and raw, burning and consuming, heart wrenching love.

_I love you. I love you. I love you until it ends us both._

“For me,” Hannibal breathed in the silent night, as his eyes devoured the artwork Will presented him like a feast on a starving man's table. 

Will smiled at the weary, blissful lines that etched into his Alpha's face. “That's one way of putting it,” he said, as his breath shook in his throat. His arms squeezed tighter around himself.

“Will,” Hannibal spoke his name, like it was already there, perpetually, on his lips. His black eyes burned on the man against the tree. Dying for their sins, with his greed turned to bounteousness. In the same instant, the Alpha licked his lips and watched Will with black pools of shimmering, deafening desire.

“Tell me,” he demanded, as his lashes trembled around his hellish eyes.

Will huffed through his nose as he stepped closer to his mate, while every muscle in his body ached for him to get there. “You were right,” he said, stretching his fingers against his own arms. “Doing bad things to bad people makes me feel good.”

Hannibal's lips twitched, cracking the heavy layers of astonishment on his features.

“This,” Will said, as he allowed his gaze to stroke the tree. “...is the empty chrysalis.” He looked down the hollow statue of Frederick Chilton, where his lower body was swallowed by the stream of cried and bled flowers.

“A transformation into a new life,” Will said, as he unfolded his arms, walking along the make-believe grass under his shoes. “A new awareness.” His fingers reached, and curled around Hannibal's wrist, allowing him to feel the slight tremor in the tendons beneath the skin.

He came to stand before his mate, and felt the warmth of their breath mingle; their eyes met as if connected by a pulling string. “A new language,” he sighed longingly, as his free fingers came to paw against Hannibal's chest. Nails scraping over cotton, where his heart was hidden behind clothes and flesh and bone.

“An offered heart.”

Hannibal's breath released as if pushed through a narrow pipe, and his hand came to grasp Will's, on his chest. His eyes were naked, stripped from any barrier, and what was beneath was a howling abyss Will had come to recognize as blissful home.

“This is _my_ proposal,” he said, and felt his chest tremble with both beast and man within. “And _my_ offered heart.”

Hannibal's fangs shone like blades in the streetlight, and his fingers clenched to Will's with a tight but fragile grip. His eyes shone black in his motionless skull, before he dipped his head and came to capture Will's lips with his in a very breakable, tender kiss. 

Their mouths touched, their lips clung to each other, and the moment was still. Breathless. Soundless. Motionless.

Hannibal inhaled. “And my answer, if I could, would be Alana Bloom on the other side of this park,” he whispered, reflecting streetlight like fire in his eyes. “Surrounded by bird of paradise, white chrysanthemums and a King Protea in the hollow of her chest.” Lips grazed Will's cheek, his nose, his chin. “Holding her heart out in return.”

Will swallowed at the passionate words against his skin, as they clenched his chest like a squeezing arm around his ribs. Hannibal had never needed time to know how he would make life fit around him. He knew exactly what it was he desired, and deserved.

No pretense. No games. Not with his heart.

And Will was here with him, accepting what he had offered by the fountain in Florence. Something beyond a human marriage. Something beyond human understanding.

“I wish I had a ring,” he chuckled, hovering near Hannibal's lips as he felt his body weightless, boneless, in the heavy cloud of their own made world.

“I don't need a ring,” Hannibal whispered, as his nudged Will's cheek with his nose and brought up his hand to thumb over Will's parted lips, right before sliding his touch over the exposed row of sharp teeth.

“I need these.”

Will swallowed hard as his lips quivered and closed around the touch, enveloping the skin of Hannibal's thumb.

“As I need yours,” he spoke against the fingers, as his tongue flickered over the skin and made the Alpha growl from deep within his belly. Hannibal pulled back his thumb and replaced it with his own lips to Will's greedy mouth. Kissing him deeply with a passionate rush of air against nostrils as lips danced wild and unrestrained, and tongues searched into the other's mouth.

It wasn't enough, to be this close. What they needed, was to be one.

**

The kiss ended with slow, warm caressing lips on lips, that lingered and stayed, as Hannibal clung to Will's hand on his heart. There was a sense of purity to the way they connected here, Will felt, as his mind shone clear and light, void of voices and thoughts and emotions that weren't his, that didn't belong, or that clouded his vision.

There was no trace of the many killers that had set up camp in the pink wriggles of his brain. There were no ink black stains of doubt inside the clouds of his mind anymore.

When he opened his eyes, the trees of the park were no longer surrounding them. Instead, Will watched them standing at the end of the long dining table, at Hannibal's former home in Baltimore. The table where they had sat across each other and played their games, watched each other over wineglasses, shared intimacy in lingering looks, food touching lips, candlelight reflecting in their eyes.

They had shared love and war at this table. They had shared birth and betrayal, desire and demise.

“Have a seat,” Hannibal whispered against his lips, before Will pulled back enough to see the homey, honey gold shine back at him. The table before them was decorated with exotic flowers in blues, burgundy and royal purple as two plates and wineglasses awaited at their seats, across one another, at the back of the table.

They had shared that space, often enough for it to feel _theirs_ , and Will didn't hesitate to walk the left side of the table, and sit down before the elegant setting. In the large, bulbous glass by his plate, was a thick layer of wine so dark it shone almost black. 

Like fresh flowing blood, in the light of the moon.

“So, what is this?” he said, as he smiled at the Alpha across him. “You're going to wine and dine me before slashing your fangs through my throat?” He followed the chuckle that left the Alpha's fangs bared as they sat before the empty plates and full glasses.

“Figuratively,” Hannibal said, as his finger caressed the stem of his wineglass. “It seems appropriate, don't you agree...” The golden eyes flickered meaningfully across Will's features, as his grip pinched the glass before being brought up into their line of sight. “...that we go back to this?”

Will took his own glass, and felt the faux weight of the crystal against the muscles in his fingers.

He noticed the royal blue suit on his mate, and saw his own black blazer on his shoulders when he looked down himself. The best he could afford, back then, while Hannibal's jacket was tailored to an inch of his very soul. 

Sewn perfectly into the human veil.

“We battled here,” he said, observing Hannibal over the rim of the glass as he watched the warm eyes follow him like a hawk. Not one that stalked his prey. One that watched her nest.

“And we both lost,” Will continued, keeping his ocean eyes steady as he watched recognition stutter through the liquid gold.

“Not this time,” Hannibal told him, before he raised his glass higher to bring it to Will's. The careful clinging left a clear bell of sound between them, before they tilted the wine to their lips and tasted, remembered, what such rich, heady wine would feel like on their tongues.

This time, however, the coppery taste of blood was left clinging to Will's taste-buds as an afterthought, and it left his skin tight with intoxication.

When he placed the glass back on the table, he realized the plates had filled themselves, and one corner of Will's lips rose with mirth as his eyes shot back up to Hannibal's content expression. “Peppered kidney with spring onions,” the Alpha hummed with open pleasure. “A simple dish, but most flavorful, I do think.”

Will watched the inviting reds and greens on his plate and smiled. “I provided the meat,” he spoke with unshielded pride as he picked up his silver fork. Hannibal's eyes reflected that pride, and burst it open into flowing worship. 

“So you did.”

Never before had the world fit, like it did today.

The meat was so tender it melted on his tongue, and the taste was promise, a reminder, of what a life together could bring them. “I did take his kidney,” Will said, as the spring onions and rosy meat tingled his tongue with spirit. “But your attorney wouldn't hold it for me.”

Louis refused to have the organ stored in his freezer. Will could hardly blame the man.

“I would not have you eat Frederick's organs, Will”, Hannibal waved his words away as his nose wrinkled with distaste. “He was absolutely ridden with chemicals.”

Of course. He still had lots to learn from Hannibal when it came to picking the right cattle. 

“Medicine,” He said, and watched Hannibal confirm.

Frederick had been under medical care ever since Gideon played Operation on him. Then, after the bullet through his eye, he must have been taking a variety of pain medications. Headaches must have occurred on a frequent basis after such ruptures had occurred in the brain. 

Hannibal licked the blood that lingered on his lips. “I would only cook you fresh, clean meat, and I'd watch you grow,” he said, with eyes so soft and full of happy, dreamlike wonder, that Will huffed into his sip of wine.

“And how should I interpret that?” he asked the Alpha with a teasing smile around his lips.

“However you wish,” Hannibal replied in a similar fashion.


	61. Chapter 61

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The garden, the lake, the woods... this world was wide and free, like Wolftrap. There was plenty of space here for their privacy, peace, a few wagging tails...
> 
> “This isn't you, Hannibal,” he broke the warm silence, as he smiled at the Alpha with pain on his lips. This place was perfect. For him, this place was paradise. But Hannibal... he needed the city, the crowds, the lights, the theater. The people, to admire and amuse him. Pavement rather than dirt beneath those polished shoes.

Their phantom meal of symbolism and acceptance fed them warm and well, and it was quickly after Frederick's kidney had been cleaned off their plates that Hannibal placed the silver cutlery on the edge of the porcelain, and stood from his chair. 

“Join me for dessert?” he asked Will, who in turn dropped his own knife and fork to the table, and pushed his chair back to accept the offered hand. Hannibal's eyes were honey in the light of the candles, and in the corner of his vision, Will saw the room around them disappear, transform, into something else entirely.

Something new.

The old dining room, where they had created their brewing friendship, their secrets and pain so overflowing it had spilled on the floor between them... it disappeared.

When Will finally pulled his eyes away from the golden lion's – in their everlasting attempt – to eat their way in, he realized they were once again outside. 

But this was not the park.

In the clear sky, on the bank of a widely stretched lake, Will found them surrounded by high trees that faded into distant mountains. Pine, rock, snow, and calm water that shone clear and clean in the spring sun, showing the fish that swam beneath.

Fresh, radiant life.

“Hannibal...” he breathed, as his eyes followed the joyful turmoil that coiled under the surface. “Where is this place?” He took a careful step in the direction of the lake, ran his eyes over the high trees and the birds, the untouched snow on the mountain peaks, before he turned towards the Alpha, and noticed the house that towered behind them.

Wood and glass, modern and warm, with a wide garden that stretched all the way to the bank of the lake.

“Wherever we wish it to be,” Hannibal said, watching Will rather than their surroundings with an unwavering eye to every line and twitch in the Omega's face. A sudden rawness showed in his expression. Vulnerability. 

Hannibal was presenting him this, fresh and unfiltered, from the hidden folds of his own brain.

“I created this,” the Alpha confessed, as he stepped forward through the damp grass of the garden. His polished shoes remained unstained. “A possibility for our future.” 

Through the glass wall of the house, Will could see the barn-wooden kitchen, combined with a stainless steel island. Tasteful. Simple. Perfect. He moved closer to look inside, curious what else Hannibal had hidden on the inside of their dream home.

“This could be a place for us, together,” Hannibal's voice brushed the back of his neck, and Will could feel the heat of his mate's pumping blood seep through his clothes. He melted back into the light touch against his back as he envisioned himself on one of those barstools, sipping coffee and reading the paper as an apron-clad Hannibal cooked them breakfast on the stove. Chatting about plans for the day, or dreams of last night...

It wasn't hard to picture.

But it was hard to believe.

The garden, the lake, the woods... this world was wide and free, like Wolftrap. There was plenty of space here for their privacy, peace, a few wagging tails...

“This isn't you, Hannibal,” he broke the warm silence, as he smiled at the Alpha with pain on his lips. This place was perfect. For him, this place was paradise. But Hannibal... he needed the city, the crowds, the lights, the theater. The people, to admire and amuse him. Pavement rather than dirt beneath those polished shoes.

“It's shaped to fit us both,” Hannibal countered with a tilt of his head. Will saw his remark had come unexpectedly in the cloud of fantasy and longing, as the Alpha briefly shook his head to dismiss the doubts like a black cloud of rain. 

Will's fingers reached to touch the window, leaving it unstained. “The countryside isn't to your taste,” he said, as his eyes wandered over the tall, glass walls that made the back of the house. The view of he lake, the mountains...

“We are near civilization,” Hannibal said as his neck reached to see around the wall that blocked their view. Will followed, and in the distance, over the treetops, Will spotted the bell tower of a church. A village, a small city, maybe. 

“There is room for you to fish, and for me to hunt,” Hannibal hummed against the back of his ear and Will felt every breath linger in his windpipe as he looked at the world his Alpha had created for them. The house he had built them. The life he was offering. A home. More home, in fact, than any place he had ever inhabited. More home, even, than the porch in his own mind.

Hannibal's eyes wandered to the lake, where little ducklings followed the tail of their mother through the reeds. “I wanted to show you that, rather than assume our desires are or will always be one, that there is as much of you in our future, as there is of me.”

The words echoed within the invisible walls of the palace, and Will watched Hannibal in his silent, strong stance, his eyes beyond whatever he could see. 

This was unexpected. A grand, grand gesture for a man who made his world into a palace. Like a king laying down his crown. 

Will had known that Hannibal had no difficulties understanding minds and desires other than his own. He had made it his profession to do so. But he had never cared to use that knowledge for anything other than manipulation. People were cattle, the rabbit to his wolf. But for Will, a mind in which he had struggled to find holes for his hooks, he was willing to give beyond his own need for self-gratification.

“This place, this fantasy, is a recent development,” Will realized, as he caught Hannibal's eyes. His Alpha had worked hard; sketching and re-sketching the perfect design as new insights and images had spilled from one mind to another within their growing connection. 

Hannibal had tried to blend them here, seamlessly. 

Such a selfless act from a man Will had once described as an intelligent psychopath, and a sadist, could only be described as the purest form of love.

“The paint has yet to dry,” Hannibal agreed, as he watched a lost duckling quack out to his mother, who returned to poke him with her beak. “I'll travel to every corner of the world to find us this,” he said, and the heavy scrape of his tone made Will realize he was thinking further down the road. A time beyond the prison glass. A time sooner upon him then he dared to realize.

If they would both live to see the light beyond the walls, their lives would be dominated by chaos for a while. They would have to run, disguise, lie, steal, kill and hide. They would have to live the lives of fugitives, until they could slip beneath the radar. _If_ they could slip beneath the radar.

“Alana knows,” Will said, as he watched the ducklings disappear and reappear through the reeds. “Jack probably knows as well.” Behind the lake, the sun has already started to descend, with a sudden, unnatural hurry. Around them, the lights turned gold.

“There will be evidence,” Will spoke against the sunset. “They won't stop looking until they'll find something.” His head turned to the side to see Hannibal's eyes burn a burgundy red, his profile marked dark and sharp against the sky. “A flake of my skin, a lost hair...”

Louis had been thorough. Will had no doubt he had perfected his skills over the years with Hannibal's patronage. But you couldn't point a bloodhound away from his target. Not when he knew exactly where to stick his nose. They would find something. They would not stop before they did.

Hannibal burned in the light as he smiled at the dying sun. “By that time, our world will be far beyond theirs,” he spoke with certainty, as they watched the approaching night turn the water of the lake to black. The mother duck had collected her young on the bank, as the birds rolled up together to sleep.

“This world?” Will asked, as he watched the last sparkles of sun dance on the surface of the water. This world, he could see them mold into. A background that already had their colors.

“We could spend our mornings out in the woods, and evenings before the fireplace,” Hannibal said, his voice a low buzz in the cool, clear air. “The market on Wednesdays, Sundays in the kitchen... Fridays, you could go fishing.”

Will felt his chest expand and his heart flutter at the image Hannibal had dreamed for them. He didn't just long for a life like this, he burned for it. He throbbed and ached and bled for it.

Others would bleed for it, too.

“Mondays, we'll go hunting,” Hannibal said, and Will licked his lips as he watched his Alpha mate's shoulders straighten as he asked him: “Does this dream house of yours have a basement?”

**

When the sun had set and the water stilled, the invisible walls around them changed once more. 

This time, the ceiling curled above them in golden domes, as arches of marble and gold led up to the painted roof. Looking down upon them, was the Christ Pantocrator. Beneath their feet, the endless mosaic. 

“The Palatine Chapel,” Will said, remembering. The heart, the stag, the maze, and the way Abigail ripped and bled on the floor, never to return to his tricked, traumatized mind. This place was a memory that ached, and yet it filled him with gentle warmth that traveled through the tip of every vein. He had forgiven him, here. He had known his love for him, here. The consciousness of those feelings had yet to be decided or understood. But he had known, here.

In this church he had looked up, felt his presence in the room, and smiled. And unlike many worshipers that would come to this place, it was not the presence of God that had enlightened him.

“I borrowed the chapel for my palace, as you know,” Hannibal said, as his eyes roamed fondly over the empty rows of chairs. “This is _my_ quiet stream.” Their eyes met, and Will saw the light of the many lit candles spark in the maroon gold. His Alpha was dressed in a suit as light as the white sand on a paradise beach, with a thin, black plaid pattern running through the fabric. 

“Borrowed,” Will repeated, knotting his brows at the chosen word. Borrowed. He turned to meet him, as a little tickling sensation pushed against the back of his neck. 

_Borrowed._

“You brought me to your old house,” he said, lips twitching as the words left them. “And you showed me a new one...”

Hannibal's gleaming eyes were undeniable as he looked at Will with colorful cheeks, his pleasure thick and contagious. Will felt his own chest expanding, as if a large butterfly was flapping its wings against the ribs.

“And this chapel, you borrowed.”

It wasn't a wedding. Not in any sense, was this a wedding. It was grander, weightier than any marriage. Primal and violent and deep. But the union was theirs, and it was a celebration as much as it was nature's feral will for survival. It was more than just instinct. It was, like marriage, a choice born from something beyond urge or greed. 

“I do enjoy traditions,” Hannibal said with a soft smile as he looked down to reach for Will's hands with his own. Lacing their fingers, as they stood before the altar, God and Christ.

“As long as you can make them your own,” Will said, unable to take his eyes away from the tender, open gaze that Hannibal directed at him. No mask, no veil, and what lay beneath was beautiful darkness.

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed, and Will could see his jaw and shoulders weaken with desire. Desire that was building inside his own belly with every breath he forced himself to take.

“I would call you a romantic,” he quivered, taking one of his hands back to reach out and cup Hannibal's smooth cheek. “but I rather think you like to seek out every corner of every sentiment, and push it further.”

There was a laugh when both released a breath of air, before Hannibal's hands came up to frame Will's face. There was a sudden urgency in him, as well as a heated, frantic need that bit through minds and bodies.

“I wish for you to bond with me here,” Hannibal spoke between them, as the bridge of his nose slid along Will's. “As I wish to bond with you in return.”

Marry me, Hannibal was asking him with those words, and Will felt his muscles tremble lightly under his skin.

“Yes,” he said, without a moment's pause.

There had been so many wounds and horrors, so many obstacles to jump and so many graves to dig. But the field before him was clear, and there was only a large, golden wolf waiting for him on the other side.

“Yes, Hannibal.”

Fingers squeezed his skull, as Hannibal pressed a hard, heated kiss to his lips.

“Do you want what will result from our union?” the Alpha hissed against his lips, and Will bit into the bottom lip that pushed between his. “No matter what it might be?”

He knew what Hannibal was asking him. The outcome of their bonding was unknown. What would change and what would stay was something they could only experience when the union was completed. What remained, with certainty, was them. 

_Do you want what I am, what I do, what I feel and say and think, love and breathe and believe? Do you want all of me, as I want all of you, no matter how deep?_

And at this point, the question had quickly become obsolete.

“I do,” he spoke roughly against his Alpha's mouth, before he groaned into the deepening kiss within the tenderness of their embrace.

“I do,” he repeated, wheezing his breath against Hannibal's cheekbone as the Alpha's lips rained fluttering kisses along the lines of his face.

“I do too,” Hannibal's rough voice trembled against his skin like a struck tuning fork, and Will gasped at the raw, open layers that it broke between them. Hannibal's eyes were blazing black and burning fire, as Will's nails were lengthened in the fabric of his Alpha's pale suit. Ripping the clothes from around the skin, the arms, the shoulders, as Hannibal's hands clung to his back, claiming Will's mouth with a most surrendering dominance. Tasting his lips, begging for entrance, persistent with such abandon it made Will's throat thicken with understanding.

This was real. 

The Omega whimpered when Hannibal's strong hands ripped at the seams of his shirt, as his Alpha's nails clung to the cotton and sank through like paper. The shirt fell from his arms and the Omega pushed his bare skin against the Alpha's suit, as his hands came to yank at his mate's clothes in return.

Such a lovely suit it was, as it fell to the floor with ugly rips and tears. Will knew that it was nothing more than the prison onesie beyond the walls of their minds, but the sight of something so treasured and expensive being torn from Hannibal's naked form for the sake of their passion, was brutally satisfying. He dipped his head to suck on the bare skin of Hannibal's exposed shoulder, and vowed to do it to one of those actual suits one day.

They pushed at each other's ripped clothes, pulled at each other's bare skin, as they hummed their admiration, whispered their heated words and swallowed around nerves.

It wasn't like it had been before. This time, they would go to that place inside themselves that Will had first discovered lying back on the prison table with Hannibal pushing home and relieving the aching, endless torment. And this time, they would never return.

Will's mouth sucked along Hannibal's throat as felt himself being lowered to the mosaic floor. His back hit the soft mattress, but in their minds he was sprawled out on the Chapel's floor, looking up at the domes of the ceiling, the judging eyes of Christ and his angels.

Hannibal never hid from God.

He groaned as the Alpha's bare chest slid along his skin, as soft hair brushed warmly against the smooth flesh. 

As of today, neither would Will.

“Hannibal,” he moaned when their bodies aligned, as his fingers clung to arms and shoulders. 

Together, they would defy nature, they would defy life and death and power, and God. Will knew it. It wasn't a wish, but knowledge. Inevitable. 

“Will,” as Hannibal's strong body covered his, pressing against him from sternum to knees, Will saw the patterns beneath his hands, his shoulders, on the floor. 

The graven skull. The mortality in Hannibal's foyer. 

He let his head rest against the imaginary stone to look up at Hannibal's fire eyes. “You,” Will said with a biting need, an aching want, as his thumb traced from nose to cheek with blatant pressure. Hannibal groaned and rumbled into the touch, as he looked down on Will and the dancing skeleton on which he had placed him. Will knew, like the words had come from the Alpha's own mouth, that this is where Hannibal had envisioned him before. 

When he had dreamed of their bonding, pictured it, he had always seen them here. When he had first told Will about the chapel, the skull, he had wanted _this._

“Will,” Hannibal bit against his hand, as his lips sucked soft bruises against the side of his palm. Every crease, every line and dimple acknowledged. He was surrendering everything, experiencing all of it, and in need of every inch of his Omega. But his face was pale beneath the flush, and his hands were unsteady on Will's body. 

He too, was affected by the weight of the swinging sword. Destiny and destination unknown. Hannibal was trembling at the sight of that highest point before the fall. That moment where control just spiraled away, and left them to nature and each other's mercy.

“Hannibal,” Will whimpered again, as he pulled at the back of his mate's neck to bring him closer, and Hannibal released an animalistic whine into his shoulder before he bit gently against the bone. Will hissed, his heart stuttering at the feeling of sharp teeth, before he sagged back against the floor with his hands in the Alpha's hair.

“I choose to see the best in you,” he said hoarsely against the Alpha's temple. “But I _know_ the worst in you,” he panted, as Hannibal's teeth scraped the flesh of his throat. _God._ His back arched, and his knees bent. His toes curled against the floor.

“And I'm here,” he grunted, crossing eyes with Christ as he felt Hannibal's warm body push against him. The Alpha lifted his head, his eyes a hazy gold of glistening, wet flames, and Will smiled with his own surrender in the face of what should have always been his life, and what would be, until the day he died.

“Where else would I go?” he said, an echo of a conversation in a different room, a different time. A light sparked in the Lion's face. Hannibal nudged against his jaw, as his fingers gripped Will's shoulders.

“You have everywhere to go,” he said, remembering, grieving the words before they fell from his lips. Will stuttered a smile, and reached up to comb back the silver hair that fell into the Alpha's eyes.

“I do,” he whispered, blinking back a sudden rush of tears that worked their way behind his eyes. “And I'm here.”

His vision was taken by a deep breath and a hot kiss that pulled on his lips, as hands tightened in his curls. Hannibal's tongue curled behind his teeth and tasted his mouth, as he took his senses and his strength with his desire.

“I love you,” his mate uttered against his lips, and a tear fell wetly on Will's cheek. Hips shifted, legs supported and curled as their naked bodies finally slotted together on the mattress, on the mosaic floor of the chapel. 

Hannibal lowered himself until his already filled erection aligned with Will's, and both men growled against each other at the contact. They were on fire with the wolves pushing beneath their skin. Their eyes were glowing and their teeth were sharp. Their claws clung to strong flesh and their backs hunched with need and anticipation as they moved and kissed and whined and craved. 

They were connected, from the flesh down to the foyer of their minds. Both ready to sink in, until completely under.

“I want you,” Will whispered his words against Hannibal's lips as he pushed up his hips to meet every stroke of the Alpha's hot skin against his. Their eyes connected, their hands intertwined, and breathed pure air in a world filled with storm and ash. 

But they needed more. They _deserved_ more.

Will whined when the underside of Hannibal's cock grazed his balls and shaft, all the way over the tip of the head. “Fuck.” Their bellies slid together, smooth and hairy, soft yet taut, as their breathing sped and their foreheads mushed together.

Will kept his eyes open to witness the silver and gold, fire and hell above him as he wrapped his hands and arms around whatever he could hold. Riding on the movement of his Alpha's body as he rolled against him with deep, hungry strokes. 

It was the anticipation of their gift, rather than the unwrapping. 

Will felt the slick from his hole already spreading over their skin as Hannibal nudged between him with the head of his cock, before he tracing and retracing his path up Will's skin. The Omega shuddered as his legs fell wantonly wide against Hannibal's body, tilting his hips up as he pawed and pulled at the Alpha's body with a high whine and a rocking pelvis. In any language, the message would be clear. 

_Take me._

Their bodies pushed closer as Hannibal sucked frantic bruises down Will's collarbone and onto his chest, as his hands came to support Will's shoulder to lift his body inches off the mattress.

“Yes,” Will breathed, as lips closed tightly around his nipple, and he looked up at the Chapel's ceiling with rolling, stuttering eyes. “Yes.”

He heard the low roar of his Alpha, and gasped when he felt the blunt, hot tip of his cock against his own leaking, aching body. It was happening so quickly, yet the air and the movement surrounding them felt still, slow motion, as if detached from anything else in the world. 

Sound echoed, lingered, as touches pushed and wrinkled skin.

And as Hannibal pushed into him with a raw sob of noise and digging nails, Will's head tilted back, his eyes stuttered, and his ears filled the swelling voices of the choir. 

The church's choir he had heard the night he had presented. 

He heard the little voices sing in the chapel as Hannibal took him, widened and stretched him with restless patience until they were fully connected. He smelled the winter fire, mingled with the autumn rain. He felt the stream with the gentle surface, and the cold, cruel under-current. 

“God,” he breathed, when Hannibal held him, looked at him with the eyes of the Alpha wolf, and moved them together in a slow, deep dance of primal love and devotion. He felt whole, and he knew his tears were already spilling freely when Hannibal's arms wrapped fully around his back, hoisting him until Will let his own arms support him behind him on the stone floor.

Predator eyes watched him with delightful recognition, as Will watched the silver hair fall into them with every rock of their hips. Pink lips were parted, cheeks flushed to life and skin shone like golden bronze beneath the light of the stained glass and red candles. 

“Don't let go,” Will begged, his voice rough like grinding rocks as he arched forward for a desperate kiss that left him weak and whimpering. “Niekada,” Hannibal replied within the same beat of their united hearts, as his breath fanned hot over Will's damp skin. 

“Never,” the Omega repeated, panted the meaning of the word as if stored inside his own mind. He pushed his hands up until he was completely straddled on his Alpha's lap, as he rose his hips and pushed back down onto his mate's wide girth. They shuddered, whimpered and sighed as they rose and fell against each other, deep in, nearly out, as slick poured down over Hannibal's thighs. Will's cock was hard and red between them, filled out and brushing the damp hairs of his Alpha's belly with every stroke.

The choir sang, God was watching, and the world spun as they made love in the eye of the storm. Will touched Hannibal's skin, knowing every dip and angle, and felt his mate's strong hands guiding his hips with digging fingers. Their lips brushed, their hands never left, and their eyes connected so deeply Will could feel the nudge against the portal of his brain.

Let me in.

The Alpha and Omega burned blue and gold beneath their skin, but their heads and hearts were not lost in animal urges. There was maddening hunger and fierce desire, executed with patient and savoring touches. No one could tell what the world would offer them, after tonight. No one could promise them anything.

“Do you hear them singing?” Will gasped against Hannibal's lips when the voices rose high and echoed back against the domes on the ceiling. The Alpha's smile stretched over his teeth as he closed his eyes and slowly dropped his head back to his shoulders. 

“First time I heard them was when I first came to Florence,” he groaned, stuttering when Will squeezed around him on his way down. His hands grabbed a tight hold on Will's ass as he opened his eyes. “I heard them again when I first met you.” 

Will's lips parted in awe as he watched the blazing glory that was Hannibal, both Alpha and human, exposed before him in those eyes, the flesh, the tears and the blood beneath the swelling veins. 

How had he failed to see him before? 

Will whimpered from his thickening throat as he rolled his hips harder, deeper on Hannibal's cock. “I wanted to run with you,” he croaked, as he pressed his face against Hannibal's temple. Fuck, it needed out. There had been forgiveness. They had relived their betrayal and they had understood each other's pain. But never had he told him. Never had he said how much he'd wanted to choose him all along. How much time he had waisted them. 

Tears fell between them as he bit down on his jaw. If he had listened to the drum of his heart, they could have lived their family life with Abigail. They could have been spared the scars, the death, the endless teeth, locked around his heart. “I'm sorry.” 

Hannibal's hands gripped him tighter, as he mouthed against the hot skin of Will's chest. “Ne,” he said. “Viskas kaip turėtų būti.” Lips grazed his heartbeat with the words that Will understood like his own mother tongue. _Everything is as it should be._

Hannibal sealed his urgent words with a hungry kiss as Will's hands clawed at the Alpha's chest through graying hair, allowing his mate to pull him back harder against the bones of his hips. His eyelids lowered with the hot pleasure that sparked from his belly to his toes to the wings of his back. 

“Taip,” he hissed against his mate's neck. Yes. Hannibal was right. Everything was as it should be, here in the Palatine Chapel.

He watched his Alpha's eyes lose sight with the blissful colission of their bodies, as he tilted back his head to the ceiling. “It's yours,” Hannibal croaked with a voice like a storm, and Will's eyes flashed hard from the fuzzy brim around the ceiling, to the hard lines of Hannibal's offered throat.

_It's yours._ Your throat, your life, your heart. Your desicion. 

Will felt a sharp jolt pushing through his knees and thighs as he moved tight and slick against his Alpha, eyes glued to the skin of his throat, the veins beneath, the oval shape of the gland pushing up.

His decision.

He held on to the hairs of his Alpha's chest as he looked at the smooth neck, the pink rim outlining the mark for him to sink his teeth in. “Hannibal.” Will felt him everywhere, in every crease, every vein, every cell, and still wanted more. He wanted to give, as much as he would receive, but the sight of that gland made his heart thump louder, and chest draw tight. He was frightened.

He could feel his Omega beg him for that bite, behind the seal of his skin. The animal wanted it, and would take him over the moment he would taste his blood. He could hurt Hannibal. He could really hurt him. 

Furthemore, the bite, the bond, could change him, them, their words, their minds, their hearts. Neither of them knew what would happen. Neither of them knew how this would end.

But Hannibal's deep breathing shook with words that drew Will out of his head. “Pažymėk mane.” _“Mark me.”_ And the heat from around Will's waist traveled up to engulf him like warm oil spreading up his skin. “Tavo.“

“Yours.” Will squeezed his body tightly around Hannibal's, as if to warn him, before he grabbed the back of the Alpha's hand with both hands, curled up his upper lip, and pushed his hips down before he lurched forward. “Mine.“

And sank his sharp fangs deep through the tissue of Hannibal's throat. The skin protested, broke, and the flesh parted beneath his teeth until his mouth flooded with blood.

And his eyes stopped seeing, his ears stopped hearing, his mind spun beyond his control.

_What hit him was a frenzy._

This... this... everything... it was there, it was all there. It was perfect. It was his. His. His. Hannibal.

Will drank. Will drank deep. The ripped skin that opened the gland and spilled fluid washed him over with the scent and taste of that winter fire, soothing down his throat to quell a painful fire Will had never known to be there.

And within this frenzy, uncontroled and savage, he never realized Hannibal tensed, growled and shook from skin to bones, before he went slack in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I love you all! The updates are not weekly anymore, but they won't stop, I promise!  
> Please don't forget my story!! <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> [https://www.tumblr.com/blog/katherinekrawl](url)  
> 


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